‘Must-win’ attitude carries Texas to gritty home win over K-State

AUSTIN – In a game that took on more of a must-win feel as it chugged to the finish line Texas – thanks mostly to star forward Dylan Disu – made the plays it needed in the final minute and outlasted visiting Kansas State 62-56 on Monday in a Big 12 Conference dustup in Moody Center. 

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Disu scored 20 points that included four free throws and a dunk in the final 36 seconds. The Longhorns (17-9, 6-7 Big 12) never trailed in the game, shrugging off a horrible shooting first half to take a five-point lead at halftime that they stretched to 46-35 on a dunk by Dillon Mitchell with 8:10 remaining. 

Kansas State used a four-point play by Arthur Kaluma and a layup by Will McNair Jr. to claw back to within six points with 2:41 left in the game. A pair of free throws by Cam Carter with 50.3 seconds remaining cut Kansas State’s deficit to four points but the Wildcats missed shots on their next two possessions. 

Disu grabbed the rebound both times and canned the free throws to allow Texas to hold on and bounce back after a 21-point loss in Houston on Saturday.

“We definitely feel like every game going forward for us is NCAA Tournament game, every game the committee kind of looks at our resume whether or not we can get in or not,” Disu said. “And so we want to treat every game like it’s our last game. 

“That’s kind of the attitude we had going into tonight and then going into the end of the game that we had to have those rebounds. Obviously on Saturday, we didn’t get those rebounds and those are the rebounds that we had to get tonight and we did.”

Tyrese Hunter added nine points for the Longhorns and Mitchell took a game-high 10 rebounds as Texas won for the third time in their past five games. The Longhorns’ Max Abmas scored eight points to allowed him to reach the 3,000-point total for his career; with 3,002 he is now 12th all time in Division I men’s scoring. 

“We competed really well and played with great energy and really good effort,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said “One day prep coming back against the well-coached and prepared Kansas State team is not easy. Every guy that played tonight I thought made a great contribution to our team. I thought this was one of our better team wins of the year.”

Kaluma led Kansas State (15-11, 5-8 Big 12) with 15 points while Tylor Perry added 13 and David N’guessan had 12. The Wildcats have dropped three straight games and seven of their past eight.

“We knew Texas would be desperate and we were in the same situation, right?” Kansas State coach Jerome Tang said. “They responded the way the team coached by Rodney Terry and that staff was just supposed to respond. They’ve got really good players over there and I thought we responded in a way that you know I’m proud of.”

Both teams were ragged over the game’s first eight minutes but Texas got the better of the beginning, forging a 14-7 lead when Brock Cunningham poured in a second-chance 3-pointer at the 12:05 mark of the first half. Kansas State missed five straight shots and had a turnover in that period.

The Wildcats culled the deficit to three points on layups by N’guessan and Cam Carter, the latter with 9:45 to play in the half. Texas pushed the lead back to seven points when Hunter hit three free throws with 3:21 play before halftime. N’guessan’s layup with 1:24 ended up as the last points of the half and brought the Wildcats to within 27-22 at the break.

Disu’s eight points before intermission led all scorers while N’guessan paced the Wildcats with seven points. Both teams were 10 of 31 from the floor (32.3 percent) and combined to go 3 of 22 from beyond the arc with Kansas State hitting only one of its 10 3-point attempts.

Texas pushed its advantage back to seven points after Kadin Shedrick banked in a hook shot in the lane with 15:22. The Wildcats responded with a 3-point by Perry and a jumper from N’guessan to pull to within two points, the closest Kansas State had been since the opening minutes.

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The Longhorns jump from the frying pan into the fire in their next game, a Saturday afternoon battle against No. 9 Kansas in Lawrence.