First one to 50 points wins.

Iowa State’s 50-46 loss to Kansas State (19-8, 7-5) on Saturday, wasn’t for the faint of heart, or for anyone who likes to see made baskets for that matter.

In a sloppy game, both teams traded missed shots for most of the night, but the Wildcats hit some key buckets in crunch time to escape Hilton Coliseum with the victory.

“Obviously baskets are really hard for us to come by right now. It was the case at Kansas and it was the case again tonight,” head coach Greg McDermott said. “We had some untimely turnovers and an awful lot of missed shots.”

The Cyclones (13-14, 2-10) were down three points with 14 seconds remaining, but Craig Brackins missed a long 3-pointer that sealed their fate.

Iowa State made only 16 of its 53 shots — a dismal 30-percent shooting, which was a season low. As bad as the Cyclones shot from the field, they were even worse when they shot from beyond the arc. Their 12-percent shooting from 3-point land was also a season low.

The Cyclones went just over eight minutes without a field goal until Lucca Staiger hit a 3-pointer, his first of the game, with 54 seconds left. The Cyclones made only six field goals in the second half and saw their five-point halftime lead disappear midway through the second half.

“We weren’t happy. We knew we had a lead and we probably could have pushed it farther than it was,” Brackins said. “We came out and I think we scored our first field goal but we let them come back in with turnovers and stuff. When we have leads we need to hold on to them instead of letting them slip away.”

Despite lengthy scoring droughts, the Cyclones were in the game until the end, in part because of their defensive play on KSU guards Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen. Both players scored fewer than 10 points and shot a combined 7-of-22 from the field. In Kansas State’s win against the Cyclones in Mannhattan, Clemente and Pullen scored 15 and 13 points.

“We were able to take that part of the game away from them and we were able to make somebody else beat us besides Pullen and Clemente, who have taken the lion’s share of their shots on the season. Our guards did a terrific job,” McDermott said.

Brackins scored 18 of his team’s 24 first-half points, but he only added six points in the second half. Brackins’ 24 points led the team, which he has done in 16 of the last 18 games.

“I thought they were just trying to be more physical with me, trying to frustrate me. The second half — my shots weren’t falling, I was probably rushing or getting a little upset, but sometimes that is just how the ball bounces,” Brackins said.

After Brackins, there was a huge dropoff in point production from the rest of the team, which has become a common theme this season. Diante Garrett scored nine points and nobody else scored more than five.

The Wildcats have won three straight games in Hilton Coliseum for the first time since 1975-’77.

Iowa State will have a chance to get the bad taste of this loss out of its mouth on Tuesday, when Baylor comes to Hilton.