Saturday’s Second Round proved to be a crazy day in the 2010 NCAA Tournament. Tenth-seeded Saint Mary’s lead off by dumping second-seeded Villanova in the South Region, eleventh-seeded Washington throttled third-seeded New Mexico in the East Region, and ninth-seeded Northern Iowa stunned the world by hanging on to defeat the top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks in the Midwest Region.

Going into the game against BYU, Kansas State knew they had a tough battle ahead of them. BYU advanced after a double-overtime win over tenth-seeded Florida two days earlier. Jimmer Fredette scored 37 points in that outing and media outlets buzzed about his abilities.

Before anyone could blink an eye, BYU rushed out to an early 10-point lead. Not even three minutes had run off the game clock, and the Wildcats had not scored. But after a timeout by Frank Martin, the Wildcats clamped down on defense and were able to settle into their offensive sets.

Junior guard Jacob Pullen was a monster for the Wildcats, scoring 20 of a career-high 34 points in the first half. Rallying from the early deficit, the Wildcats ran into the locker room with a 41-31 advantage over BYU.

Not surprisingly, BYU came out of the locker room with some fire and immediately began to chip away at the ten-point K-State advantage. However, no matter what the Cougars did, the Wildcats kept them at arms length through the second half and refused to let them get close enough to make any real threat of stealing the game from the Wildcats and their surging backcourt.

Pullen and Denis Clemente both knocked down three-point shots all night, answering every BYU attempt to get back in the game. In one instance, BYU inched to within five in the second half, but the Wildcats answered with five-straight points to stretch the lead back to 10.

Pullen ended the game with a career-high 34 points, 14 coming in the second half, while he drained seven three balls on the night. Put into perspective, that is more than BYU had as a team, and BYU entered the game as the best three-point-shooting team in the country. K-State’s junior star proved to be too much to overcome for BYU, as the Wildcats marched to a 84-72 victory and a birth in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1988.

But Pullen wasn’t the only player clicking for the Wildcats. Kansas State dominated the post, accumulating 11 offensive rebounds to go along with their 33 total rebounds.

Going into the game, many assumed that BYU would win the free-throw battle in a landslide. To the contrary, the Wildcats actually shot a better percentage from the line than the Cougars (90% to BYU’s 89.3%). Kansas State entered the game knowing that BYU was a great free-throw shooting team. This meant that the Wildcats had to do their best of keeping the Cougars off the line. Even with that knowledge, the Cougars were still able to take 28 free-throw attempts. But the Wildcats were able to neutralize that number, taking 30 free-throw attempts for themselves. The Wildcats hit 27 of 30 attempts, a season high.

The Wildcats shared the ball well all night, dishing out 14 assists to compliment its 23 field goals. Nonetheless, Pullen put on an impressive display for the Wildcats. Not only did he score an incredible 34 points, but his defensive efforts on BYU’s Jimmer Fredette were outstanding. Pullen held Fredette to just 5-of-13 shooting, and 10 of his 21 points came from the free-throw line.

The Wildcats’ dynamic backcourt dominated the game, scoring 53 points, but the frontcourt came up big, pounding on the Cougars and wearing them down early. For much of the game, BYU’s big men had to deal with foul trouble and the Cougars simply could not make any runs to overtake the Wildcats.

K-State will play their Sweet 16 game in Salt Lake City, UT on March 15th, against the winner of Sunday’s Xavier/Pittsburgh game. Regardless of who the Wildcats face, they must be prepared for the unrelenting backcourt of Pullen and Kansas State.