"Worked so hard all year, preseason, offseason, and you're right there — you're four minutes from cutting down the nets," Pullen said. "It just slipped out of our hands."
With 4:49 left in the game, the Wildcats were in a place they hadn't been the entire contest — ahead of the Bulldogs. Denis Clemente buried a 3-pointer following an offensive rebound by Dominique Sutton to give K-State a 52-51 lead, sending the Wildcat crowd into a frenzy. The play capped what was a 13-2 run over a three-minute period to give K-State its first lead of the game.
It appeared the Wildcats were going to get over the hump. K-State had cranked up its defensive pressure and Butler looked flustered.
"We felt like that was the run we needed to sustain the lead," Pullen said.
With 3:06 left in the game, the score was tied at 54. But K-State wouldn't score over the next three minutes as Butler went on a 9-0 run, scoring six points on layups, to seal the victory and advance to its first Final Four in school history.
K-State coach Frank Martin said his team didn't handle the final minutes of the game well defensively. On the offensive end, the Wildcats relied heavily on jump shots rather than taking the ball inside.
"We got back in the game by attacking the rim, then we settled," Martin said.
Pullen launched a deep 3 that would have given K-State a 57-56 lead, but it rimmed in-and-out. It epitomized the Wildcats' day on offense.
"Jake takes that long 3. It's hard to get upset at somebody that's made so many of them to help us get to this game for taking that shot," Martin said. "But like I told him, second to the last timeout, 'it's not the time for that one right now.'"
For much of the contest, Butler took K-State out of its game. The Bulldogs' methodical style gave the Wildcats fits. The Bulldogs defense, which ranked in the top-10 nationally in scoring defense at 59 points per game, held K-State's high-octane offense in check. The Wildcats made just 38.6 percent from the field and 33 percent from behind the arc.
Butler seemingly got to every loose ball while outrebounded K-State 41-29, something few teams have been able to do against the Wildcats this season.
"They annihilated us on the glass," Martin said.
The Bulldogs grabbed 12 offensive rebounds compared to K-State's 11 and outscored the Wildcats 13-12 on second-chance points.
"It's honestly a little embarrassing," freshman Wally Judge said about the rebounding differential.
K-State spent much of the game trying to dig itself out of a hole. The Wildcats missed numerous shots close to the basket. Shots that fell all season for them weren't going through the net.
"They played good defense but we just missed shots," Pullen said. "We were shooting layups and we were missing them."
Clemente and Pullen couldn't find open looks throughout the first half. The pair scored just two points combined on 1-of-8 shooting in the first 20 minutes. Pullen took only two shots and was held scoreless, as he was hounded by Butler's lockdown defender Ronald Nored.
Curtis Kelly was forced into trying to take over for K-State. The junior forward scored 12 of his 14 points in the half while Judge added four.
"We paid a lot of attention to them," Butler coach Brad Stevens said of K-State's guards. "Every ball screen we tried to trap, which is a little bit different than normal. And then we wanted to try and make their bigs take jump shots. The first eight minutes, that was really proving itself to be happening."
Butler could only hold Pullen and Clemente in check for so long. In the second half, the pair combined to score 30 points on 10-of-22 shooting.
"We tried to work through the post in the first half," Pullen said. "Second half, we tried to be more aggressive and the ball just didn't go through the net."
The Bulldogs led K-State 27-16 with 1:18 remaining in the first half, but K-State would rally. The Wildcats closed the half on a 4-0 run and went into halftime down 27-20.
K-State proceeded to score the first six points of the second half, pulling within one point with 17:30 left in the contest. But like most of the game, the Bulldogs had an answer, going on a 10-2 run to take a 37-28 lead at the 14:41 mark.
"Every time we made a couple shots, they stepped right back up and make a shot or make a play," Martin said.
Much of the time it was Butler's leading scorer, Gordon Hayward, doing the damage. The 6-foot-9 sophomore scored 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting and was able to extend the floor with his ability to shoot from the perimeter.
"That was a concern of mine," Martin said of Hayward. "What our bigs didn't do is they didn't do a very good job of making him catch the ball a little further away."
K-State struggled to get its transition offense going, scoring just six fast-break points in the game. The Wildcat bench contributed just eight points due in large part to Jamar Samuels, the Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year, being held scoreless. Dominique Sutton also didn't score.
In the end, the Wildcats didn't get to live out the dream of cutting down the nets. But K-State did make the Elite Eight and won a school-record 29 games, and that, Martin said, cannot be forgotten because of the sting from one loss.
"These kids have made a lot of people live for something again," he said. "K-Staters around this country believe in them, believe in the program, believe in their school and stick their chest out. That's a heck of a lot more important than winning and losing a game. Their approach, their belief, their commitment has revived our program.
"It's unfortunate because we all get judged on winning and losing," Martin continued. "But when you can make the impact that these kids have made in so many people in the community of Manhattan and K-Staters across the country… The big picture is always a lot bigger than that immediate hit of winning or losing the game."
