It was a very entertaining game.  For a while, it looked like 6 seed Kentucky would pull the upset.  Well, the upset according to seeds – the Vegas line-makers actually had Kentucky as the favorite – probably because of the massive amount of money that tends to get bet on Kentucky each year.

KSU’s Markquis Nowell is amazing.  Nowell is only 5’8″, but might be one of the most fun point guards to watch – so many awesome passes leading to lay-ups and dunks for his teammates.  With about 3 minutes in the game, Nowell’s ability to pass might have led to the refs making a horrible call.

He drove to the basket and started to raise his arm to lob the ball to his teammate in the lane when he was fouled from behind.  It should have been ball to KSU since it was Kentucky’s 5th foul.  But they awarded Nowell two shots for being in a shooting motion.  You just never know with Nowell and his arm was moving in a way that could have been a floater shot or a lob to his teammate.

Nowell hit both free throws to give KSU the lead.  But Kentucky came right back as Cason Wallace grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back in to give the lead back to Kentucky.

But that would be the last lead for Kentucky.  With a little over 2 minutes left, Nowell sent the ball across the court to Ismael Massoud who hit an extremely long three-pointer right next to the KSU bench.  Kentucky’s Chris Livingston got a chance to answer but his three pointer from the corner was a little off and KSU’s David N’Guessan grabbed the offensive rebound.  But in the struggle for the ball, N’Guessan had someone step on his shoe to the point where it completely came off.

For a while, KSU was playing 4 on 5, as the KSU forward tried to get his shoe back on.  He eventually got down the court, with the shoe clearly not on.  Which made what happened next amazing.  Nowell missed a three-pointer, and N’Guessan jumped over everyone and tapped the ball back out to Nowell to help KSU keep the possession.  Nowell then passed the ball to Keyontae Johnson who hit another three-pointer, and suddenly, Kansas State was up 5 points with 1 1/2 to play.

KSU’s Nowell and Desi Sills managed to combine to hit 8 straight free throws to make sure that Kentucky couldn’t come back by fouling, and Kansas State won 75-69.