#7 K-State lost 69-66 to #10 Texas at home giving them their first home loss of the Jerome Tang era.

Just 1:07 into the game, leading scorer Keyontae Johnson picked up two quick fouls. He came back in the game with around 12:00 left and immediately made their first three of the game after missing their first five.

Throughout the first half, Texas was getting some good looks with open mid-range jumpers but wasn’t making many of them.

Johnson came back into the game and picked up his third foul with about five minutes left.

The Wildcats’ lead would grow to as much as 14 and would lead 36-25 at the half. The Horns shot just 30% from the floor in the first half, and the Cats shot 48%. K-State had eight different scorers in the opening 20 minutes.

Texas went on a 17-4 run starting with a foul leading to three free throws with 0.4 left in the first half and continued for the first five minutes of the second half, which cut the lead down to one.

Texas got their first lead since the opening minutes with 12:05 to go and the game was back-and-forth the rest of the way. K-State is near the bottom of the entire NCAA DI ranks in defense around the rim and it showed as Texas forward Christian Bishop couldn’t be stopped in the paint. He finished with 14 points with all in the second half.

The Cats were unable to grab rebounds and Texas was cleaning up around the rim with second chance points. After losing the rebound margin 19-12 in the first half, the Longhorns out-rebounded KSU 18-12 in the second half.

With Texas up 65-64, Marcus Carr blew by Markquis Nowell, but missed his layup with 1:05 left. Nowell made layup in transition with 57.8 left to go up by one.

Bishop made the game-winning layup with 37.4 seconds left to go up 67-66.

K-State had two possessions at the end of the game which resulted in a turnover on a Timmy Allen steal and a missed three by Ish Massoud. The transfer from Wake Forest was off Saturday afternoon shooting just 1-for-9 on the day, so him getting the final shot was peculiar. Especially with how successful coach Tang had been drawing up quality plays in the final seconds like how he did against Oklahoma State, at Baylor and against Kansas.

That doesn’t dismiss the fact that Texas shot 57.1% from the floor in the second half. Bishop led the way shooting 6-for-8. Sir’Jabari Rice also finished with 14 points and ten rebounds.

Johnson was the leading scorer for K-State with 16 points. Desi Sills scored 11 points and Nowell was 0-for-5 from deep but finished with ten points.

With the loss, K-State falls in back-to-back games for the first time under coach Tang and have now lost three of their last four contests. They drop to 6-4 in Big 12 play (18-5 overall), which ties them for third place with Baylor, Kansas and TCU.

As for Texas, they now lead the conference by themselves with an 8-2 Big 12 record (19-4 overall) and are one game up on Iowa State (7-3, 16-6).

K-State will hope to regroup and avoid a third loss in a row when they play host to TCU on Tuesday, who they lost to in Fort Worth 82-68 on January 14th. The Horned Frogs lost at Oklahoma State on Saturday 79-73 and will hope to avoid losing three of their last four as well.