MANHATTAN, Kan. — Keyontae Johnson scored 25 points, Markquis Nowell added 14 points and 10 assists, and No. 14 Kansas State followed a long first-half slump with a big second-half run to beat ninth-ranked Baylor 75-65 on Tuesday night.
Cam Carter added 10 points for the Wildcats (21-7, 9-6 Big 12), who trailed 34-31 at the break before their 18-4 charge gave them control.
They coasted from there to a school record-tying seventh win over a ranked team this season.
Keyonte George hit six 3-pointers and scored 23 points for Baylor (20-8, 9-6), which had won seven of its last eight against the Wildcats and three straight in Manhattan.
LJ Cryer added four 3s and finished with 16 points.
The game was a rematch for Bears coach Scott Drew and Kansas State counterpart Jerome Tang, who spent 19 years on Drew’s bench.
And it was every bit as wild as the Wildcats’ 97-95 overtime win in early January.
Baylor was coming off an 87-71 loss at Kansas on Saturday in which the Bears were phenomenal in the first half, building a 17-point lead, and dreadful in the second, when they were outscored 55-26 while looking listless and lost.
The Bears’ kept that Jekyll and Hyde act going Tuesday night.
Their sluggish finish in Lawrence carried over to the opening 13 minutes in Manhattan, when the Wildcats were able to methodically build a 24-13 lead.
But after Drew called a timeout, his guys answered with a 3-pointer fueled 21-3 run over the next 6-plus minutes, allowing Baylor to take a 34-31 advantage into the break.
Cryer did most of the damage, going 4 of 5 from beyond the arc and scoring 11 first-half points.
The Bears cooled off as quickly as they heated up.
They were still leading 40-37 in the opening minutes of the second half when Johnson scored back-to-back baskets to put Kansas State ahead.
David N’Guessan kept the run going, and it eventually reached 18-4 when Carter took a turnover by the Bears’ Caleb Lohner for a dunk that made it 55-44 with just over 8 minutes left in the game.
The Wildcats stretched their lead to as many as 14 before wrapping up the season sweep of the Bears.
BIG PICTURE
Baylor struggled to find some help for Cryer and George on offense. Adam Flagler missed his first nine shots and finished with four points on 1-for-13 shooting, and Jalen Bridges had just six points while dealing with foul trouble all night.
Kansas State overcame a poor night from the 3-point arc (4 of 21) by dominating the guard-heavy Bears with a 42-16 edge in the paint. Many of those points came in transition, where the Wildcats had a 19-5 advantage in points off turnovers.
UP NEXT
Baylor returns home to play eighth-ranked Texas on Saturday.
Kansas State visits Oklahoma State the same day.
