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Wisconsin shoots down Beasley, Kansas State

Mar 23, 2008 - 1:06 AM OMAHA, Nebraska (Ticker) -- Trevon Hughes had a career day and may have ended the college career of freshman Michael Beasley in the process.

Hughes scored a career-high 25 points and No. 3 Wisconsin rained down 3-pointers to knock off 11th-seeded Kansas State, 72-55, in the second round of the Midwest Regional on Saturday.

The Badgers (31-4) move on to face second-seeded Georgetown or No. 10 Davidson in the regional semifinals next week.

"I'm proud to be here as their coach," Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan said. "They're to be commended for what they've accomplished. Kansas State is a very good team and they posed a lot of problems for us. Fortunately, our players found solutions."

Hughes made four 3-pointers and the Badgers connected on nine overall, including seven in the first half to take a 39-33 lead.

"The difference today was being patient," Hughes said. "In the first round I was too antsy. Today I knew I had to be under control and play Wisconsin basketball and keep my teammates in the game."

Michael Flowers was 3-of-3 from the arc and scored 15 points, and Greg Stiemsma added 14 for Wisconsin while holding Beasley to only six second-half points.

"We're one of the best teams in the country on defense," Flowers said. "And we do it with defense. We got a (Big Ten) conference championship, and we did that with defense."

"We wanted to keep him off the boards and put a body on him," Stiemsma said of defending Beasley. "A guy like that is almost impossible to stop. You just want to try to contain him."

Now the speculation can begin regarding Beasley and whether or not he has played his final game for the Wildcats. If it was his last college game, he went down swinging but couldn't do it alone.

"The second half they were clamping down a little more," Beasley said. "They were double-teaming, triple-teaming every time I touched the ball, so I really couldn't get the shot I wanted."

Beasley finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds and Bill Walker added 18 points but no other player scored more than four for the Wildcats (21-12).

Kansas State struggled from the arc as well, finishing 0-of-13, the first time in 349 games it failed to make a 3-pointer.

"Transition defense this weekend has been our main focus," Flowers said. "We were not going to let Beasley just jack up threes. They have some good shooters, but sometimes when you're under duress it doesn't go in."

"The bottom line is they jumped up and made nine threes and we go 0-for-13 from the 3-point line," Wildcats coach Frank Martin said. "I felt 11 of the 13 threes we took were the ones we were looking to shoot, and they just didn't go in for us today. And when that happens, chances of us succeeding become a little more difficult.

"At the end of the day that ball's got to go through that little orange thing. If it doesn't go through that orange thing, it's hard to win."

Wisconsin opened the second half on an 11-2 run, boosted by Hughes' eight points, to take a 49-35 lead with 15:18 left in the game and led by at least nine points the rest of the way.

"Defensively, we haven't changed anything," Ryan said. "We've been doing that as many years as I've been a coach. You cannot make a team play good defense if guys are off on their own. Satellites aren't going to make the universe. All the things have to come together and this group does that as well as any, even better."