KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Barry Brown sometimes pushes the issue too much.
There are times when Brown, Kansas State's talented 6-foot-3 junior guard, attacks the basket when the lane isn't clear. Sometimes, Brown pulls up and shoots from the perimeter, when the Wildcats would be better served with a higher-percentage shot.
"He tries to do too much (at times), like the last TCU game," K-State head coach Bruce Weber said. "The one thing he has done is he is very coachable and he's a little stubborn. But he's coachable."
When Kansas State (21-10) meets TCU (21-10) Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in a Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal game, no Wildcat wants redemption more than Brown.
In their previous meeting on Feb. 27 in Fort Worth, Texas, no matter how hard Brown tried, everything he did backfired.
It was a game that got away from K-State.
The Wildcats held a 56-55 lead with under two and a half minutes remaining. But TCU leapfrogged K-State with a game-ending 9-0 run to rally for a 66-59 victory.
K-State had a two-point lead when Brown went to the bench with four fouls. With Brown unavailable, the Horned Frogs surged.
When Brown reentered the game, he committed a turnover and then opted to let the TCU player drive past him to avoid a fifth foul. Brown committed another turnover on a drive to the basket on another possession. To top it off, he missed an open jump shot on a possession which never saw a second pass.
"We're using it as a little motivation, knowing that we let one slip away a little over a week ago at their place," Brown said Wednesday morning at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri. "It kind of boils down to getting those key stops down the stretch, along with putting the ball in the basket and not turning the ball over.
"We have a little bit of sour taste in our mouth about that game because we controlled them and we let it slip away at the end."
Brown, who finished with 17 points on 7 of 10 shooting in the loss at TCU, averaged 20.6 points over the Wildcats' final six regular-season games.
Brown bounced back from the TCU defeat with 18 points in K-State's 77-67 home win over Baylor on Saturday.
"To his credit, against Baylor, he comes back and has nine assists," Weber said. "That's impressive, a career high. He has to let the defense dictate, and make the right plays."
Outside of Brown's turnover issues against the Horned Frogs, he has been K-State's most productive guard all season, picking up the slack after fellow guard Kamau Stokes suffered a foot injury in January.
Brown is averaging 16.6 points per game, second-most on the team, connecting on 46.6 percent of his shots (179 for 384), including 33 percent on 3-pointers (40 for 120). He leads the team in both assists (110) and steals (59).
Wade: Key to breaking down TCU defense is spacing
TCU played a lot of man-to-man defense against K-State the last time the teams met.
"Spacing is the biggest key, said Kansas State junior forward Dean Wade, who leads the Wildcats in scoring average (16.7 per game) and rebounding (6.4 per game) while shooting a team-best 55 percent from the field (192 for 349).
"It's big having big spacing on the floor in the corner and at the key."
A 6-foot-10 junior from St. John, Wade has made the most of his open looks this season connecting on a team-best 42.7 percent (38 for 89) on 3-pointers.
"All we can focus on is this game," Wade said. "We've got to win this game. That's all we can focus on."
Another technical coming for Dixon?
TCU head coach Jamie Dixon is emotional.
And he's shown that this season against K-State, receiving technical fouls in each of the first two meetings.
Both teams won on their home courts; it remains to be seen what will transpire at a neutral site Thursday.
Weber isn't sure if Dixon does it to fire up his team. But Weber was certain Dixon didn't plan on getting ejected from the game Jan. 20.
"I know he was very sad, disappointed and frustrated, because I talked to him after that," Weber said. "I didn't even see one there (at TCU)."
"The old-school coaches — Al McGuire and Bobby Knight and all of those guys — you would see their technicals make a difference. But if (Dixon) gets technicals and it helps us, so be it. But we'll see what happens."