SALT LAKE CITY — For those who don’t already, it’s time to Fear the Beard. After an amazing, double-overtime victory, Jacob Pullen and Kansas State are one win from the Final Four.
Scruffy beard and all, Pullen hit two 3-pointers in the second overtime and finished with 28 points to help the second-seeded Wildcats outlast No. 6 Xavier 101-96 in an epic game Thursday night in the West Regional semifinals.
“It was a classic,” Pullen said. “It was two teams that didn’t want their season to end.”
The Wildcats (29-7) get to keep going. After knocking off one midmajor, they’ll play another — fifth-seeded Butler — on Saturday to try to make their first Final Four since 1964. It is the first time Kansas State has made it this far in the NCAA Tournament since 1988.
Hard to call Xavier (26-9) a loser on this night, though. With the Musketeers trailing by three at the end of regulation, Terrell Holloway got fouled while heaving up a 30-footer with five seconds left and calmly made all three free throws. Xavier was down by three again at the end of the first overtime, but Jordan Crawford jacked up a 35-footer that hit nothing but net.
“It was just one of those moments,” Pullen said.
One that certainly belongs on YouTube, right beside Crawford’s dunk on LeBron James, for sure.
But for Kansas State, this victory might land in a more permanent archive.
It was a classic. The next great moment in a season that took on its own personality in January, when Pullen decided to let the beard he grows along his jaw turn into something Abe Lincoln could love — and the Kansas State administration went along with it, passing out fake beards to fans who came to Bramlage Coliseum.
Now, the whole team has facial hair, and the fans wear T-shirts that say “Fear the Beard.”
