Game Notes: No. 6 Texas A&M 63, No. 3 Kansas State 60
KANSAS STATE
National Freshman of the Year and Big 12 Player of the Year Michael Beasley became the third player in Big 12 history to score at least 800 points in a season. He joins Texas' Kevin Durant (903 in 2006-07) and Iowa State's Marcus Fizer (844 in 1999-2000). He grabbed nine rebounds, pushing his season total to 384 passing Kansas' Nick Collison (380 in 2002-03) for the third-greatest single-season rebounding mark in Big 12 history.
Beasley's 25 points and nine rebounds pushed him into the top five for both categories for freshman in NCAA history. He has scored 820 points, tying him with VMI's (and future Missouri Tiger) Jason Conley for fourth place. He passed Oklahoma's Wayman Tisdale's total of 810 points, set in 1982-83. His 384 rebounds moved him past Virginia's Ralph Sampson's freshman-year rebounding total of 381 rebounds to move into fifth place in NCAA history. He will enter his postseason tournament needing just two rebounds to pass LSU's Shaquille O'Neal's first-year total. He will need seven rebounds to pass Kevin Durant for the third-most boards by a freshman in NCAA history and for first in Big 12 history.
Frank Martin made his Big 12 Championship head coaching debut. His loss puts current coaches 6-6 in their first Big 12 Championship game.
Beasley totals of 25 points and nine rebounds mark his second straight game falling short of 30 points and of a double-double. In the four games prior to his last two, he averaged 36.5 points and 13.3 rebounds per game. Beasley averaged 20.0 points and 9.0 rebounds in his last two games. He will enter his postseason tournament with 26 double doubles, tied for the 17th-most in NCAA history.
In his first Big 12 Championship game, Big 12 All-Rookie Team member and All-Big 12 Third-Team member Bill Walker dished high a career high six assists. His previous high of five was set twice (vs Oregon on 11/29/07 and vs Oklahoma State on 2/9/08)
The Wildcats turned the ball over only seven times, setting a season low. The previous low-turnover performance for the Wildcats was 10, set against Texas on 2/25/08. The Wildcats have not committed so few turnovers in a game since 2/3/07 when they committed six in a 73-72 win at Texas.
TEXAS A&M
After winning just one game in the first 11 Big 12 Championships, the Aggies have won twice in 2008 to advance to their second semifinal (2006).
Mark Turgeon joins Sean Sutton as the only two active Big 12 coaches to win two games in his first Championship appearance. Sutton led the seventh-seeded Oklahoma State Cowboys to the semifinals of the 2007 Championship.
Dominique Kirk set a season high for scoring with 19 points. His previous high in a game this season came against Texas Tech on 2/27/08 when he scored 16 in a 98-54 win. Kirk matched a career high with five 3-point field goals, also set in that Texas Tech game. Against the Red Raiders, he connected on 5-of-7 3-point tries. Tonight he hit on 5-of-6.
The Aggies finished 7-of-14 on their 3-point attempts, just the third time this season that they have shot at least 50 percent from beyond the arc.
Big 12 Championship Notes...
The semifinal matchups of the first seed vs the fourth seed and the second seed vs the sixth has occurred just once before in Big 12 Championship history. In 2006, the top two seeds, Texas and Kansas, along with Texas A&M (the No. 4 seed) and Nebraska comprised the final four teams.
With the three-point margin, the first eight games of the 2008 Big 12 Championship have been decided by a total of 54 points. No Big 12 Championship has seen its first eight games decided by a closer cumulative margin. The previous mark through eight games was 68 points, set in 2005.