TUCSON — By the time two seasons came to a head at the McKale Center on Saturday night, Wisconsin guard Jordan Taylor had long since lost the much-anticipated battle with Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen.
His worst collegiate moment was juxtaposed with the best from Pullen, who sought revenge for a 2008 N.C.A.A. tournament loss to the Badgers. Pullen, a senior, nearly found it all by himself during a dazzling display of two-way dominance. But when Pullen pulled up on the left wing with two seconds left for a 3-pointer that would have tied this Round of 32 game, Taylor picked the perfect time for some retribution of his own.
He closed quickly on Pullen, blocking his shot and capping a 70-65 Badgers win that sent them singing all the way to the Sweet 16 and ended Pullen’s illustrious career on a painful note.
Pullen’s bittersweet outing will go down with individual footnotes, as he surpassed Mike Evans to break Kansas State’s career scoring mark of 2,115 points and set a new tournament scoring record for the Wildcats. Taylor, however, did just enough at the end to lead his team into the next round.
Wisconsin will face eighth-seeded Butler in New Orleans on Thursday after its upset of top-seeded Pittsburgh in Washington on Saturday.
“I feel like we won the battle because we won the game,” Taylor said. “It’s a team sport. So obviously he is a heck of a player. He was the best player on the floor tonight. But we’re moving on and going to New Orleans, so that’s all that matters.”
Taylor did, in fact, get plenty of help from his teammates. His fellow all-Big 10 Conference player Jon Leuer had 19 points and 7 rebounds, and Josh Gasser and Mike Bruesewitz had 11 apiece. They did just enough to leave up it to Taylor at the end, and he came through in a way they have grown so accustomed to seeing.
“We made the gutty plays, and that’s what we are known for,” Wisconsin senior forward Keaton Nankivil said. “Gutty hustle plays, that’s what describes our team.
“The way I would always describe Jordan as an athlete is a winner. Whether he’s scoring, passing, doing anything, he’s a winner. It was signature in that sense, that he made the plays when they counted.”
As the sizable Wisconsin contingent danced along with their favorite band, Pullen was the only member of his team to place a towel over his low-hanging head as he walked off the floor. Even with his career-high-tying 38 points that included 6 of 8 shooting from 3-point range, and even with Taylor’s 2 of 16 showing that had everything to do with Pullen’s presence, his final two minutes had been everything that the first 38 were not.
Two of his three turnovers came in that stretch, the first coming with 1 minute 40 seconds remaining when his entry pass to forward Curtis Kelly was intercepted by Taylor and led to a 3-pointer from Bruesewitz to put Wisconsin up, 64-61. Then with 19 seconds remaining and fourth-seeded Wisconsin up by 64-63 on the fifth-seeded Wildcats, Pullen — whose freshman season was ended by Wisconsin in the third-round matchup he certainly never forgot — lost control of the ball in traffic on the break and kicked it into the loudest of crowds. Leuer was fouled, and buried two free throws to make it 66-63.
Pullen seemed to have one final answer, though, taking the handoff from the freshman point guard Will Spradling atop the key and drawing contact from Taylor on his 3-point attempt. He made the first attempt, but missed the second, then converted the third before Kansas State was forced to foul.
Fittingly, Taylor was sent to the line. He converted both attempts with 10 seconds remaining, then finished the late turning of this tide with the late block. Kansas State Coach Frank Martin, whose team fell far short of matching its Elite Eight showing last season, was looking for Spradling to take the open look on the play and made his frustrations known afterward.
“Will can shoot the basketball, and he is a real good shooter off the dribble,” Martin said. “I told him, ‘Will, when you come off that ball screen, if they don’t guard you, shoot it’ because I knew they were going to pay so much attention to Jake. But we didn’t execute it real well. Our floor spacing was bad, which then Jake had no space to operate.”
Pullen would later sit surrounded by his teammates in a silent locker room, the towel removed from his head but the pained look still on his face.
“It’s over with man, the end of my career,” he said in hushed tones. “That’s all I can think about right now. No more games. That’s it. That’s the toughest part about it.”
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