The Sweet 16’s opening game delivered the best game of the 2023 NCAA tournament to date and fittingly ended with March Madness’ first overtime as No. 3 Kansas State defeated No. 7 Michigan State in a 98-93 thriller Madison – Square garden. With the win, the Wildcats, who were picked last in the Big 12 last season, holed their first Elite Eight ticket since 2018.
Kansas State played with the lead for most of the game before letting Michigan State sneak back in the second half to force an overtime, but after a historic outing from Wildcats guard Markquis Nowell, KSU took the lead with just under a minute left in overtime and clung to victory.
Nowell pulled off one of the most fabulous individual performances in NCAA tournament history as he led Kansas State to a narrow win and broke Mark Wade’s long-standing record of more than three decades for most assists in an NCAA tournament game (18) with a total of 19 dimes . He finished with 20 points to back up his stellar performance and won the game with a steal and layup on the buzzer for good measure.
“It was a place of fire,” said K-State freshman coach Jerome Tang after the game on TBS. “But we practice in a place of fire all the time. So [Markquis Nowell] was ready for it. That’s a bad boy right there.”
Nowell equaled the NCAA tournament record for assists by just under a minute to play on an old-fashioned okie-doke given to the Sparty defense in the second half. At the top of the key, he looked over at Tang as if he and the two were discussing which set the team would execute…while Keyontae slashed Johnson to the rim for an alley-oop that Nowell delivered in just the right spot Time.
“It was just a basketball game between me and Keyontae,” Nowell said after the game. “We knew how Michigan State plays defense. They play high up. We made eye contact and he said ‘praise, praise’. I just threw it up. He played a great game.”
Johnson added, “Michigan is watching a lot of the ball. So [Markquis Nowell] always tells me if he drives he’ll look for me.”
Kansas State sped to a 43-38 lead at halftime behind Nowell’s 10 assists in the first half, but after apparently injuring his ankle midway through the second half, Sparty ramped up his attack to tighten things up. Nowell landed a new tape job and immediately got back to impacting the game with his regular exploits, turning nearly a turnover into one of the postseason’s best highlights.
Kansas State also received a big production from Johnson and Ismael Massoud as the duo added 22 and 15 points, respectively. The Wildcats fended off a deep and balanced effort from the Spartans, whose five starters all finished in double figures, led by AJ Hoggard with 25 and Joey Hauser with 18 points. New York’s Tyson Walker, who finished with 16 points, had 11 of those in second half and overtime and forced the overtime with a layup in the second half.
“Give [Kansas State] Credit,” Izzo said on TBS immediately after the loss. They’ve made some big platys, but some of those big games weren’t big games, they were happy games.”
The win for Kansas State propelled it into the East Regional Finals, where it will face winners from Florida Atlantic and Tennessee on Saturday for a chance to play its first Final Four since 1964.