Diante Garrett had one more free throw.

The problem – Iowa State was down by two with 2.5 seconds left.

After Bill Walker missed the front end of a one and one free throw opportunity with Kansas State clinging to a three-point lead, Garrett took the pass off a Jiri Hubalek rebound and dribbled it down the floor, needing a three-pointer to tie the game. The result was a two shot foul, allowing the Wildcats to hold on for a 73-69 victory in front of 14,134 on senior day in Hilton Coliseum.

“If you’re going to [foul], generally it would have happened a little sooner, otherwise I would have taken a timeout right away, and I didn’t want them to have an opportunity to get a chance to do that,” coach Greg McDermott said. “[Diante] can penetrate and he was shooting well enough that I thought he could get us a shot.”

Instead, Garrett had to miss his second free throw and hope that an Iowa State player could tip in the rebound to tie the game. Unfortunately for the Cyclones, the nation’s leading rebounder in Michael Beasley was standing under the hoop to pick up his ninth rebound to put the game away after Iowa State fought back from a 14-point second half deficit.

“That was tough,” ISU Craig Brackins said. “We had a plan to try to tip it to anybody and grab the rebound, but it was hard”

Brackins had a game-high 24 points to go along with Wesley Johnson’s 12. The Cyclones held Beasley in check defensively, only allowing him 15 points, but allowed freshman Jacob Pullen step up and beat them with 19 of his own points.

“What killed us was Jacob Pullen going 8-11. they had a player, a freshman, step up and have a huge game, and to me that was the glaring difference in the game,” McDermott said.

What also killed the Iowa State was Kansas State’s ability to get on the glass. The Cyclones designed their defense to stop Beasley and Bill Walker, but in the process left other Wildcat players in position to pick up offensive rebounds, of which they were able to grab an impressive 15 on the day.

The Cyclones still put themselves in a position to win after trailing by 14 with 10 minutes to play, after a Dominique Sutton shot capped an 8-0 Wildcat run. Iowa State chipped its way back, however, but once again found itself on the short end.

“It’s really unfortunate that this team just can’t quite kick that door in. We’re so, so close,” McDermott said. “There’s a lot of good things that have happened this week. I’m not sure a lot of teams would have played with the heart this team played with, given the situation, especially today when we were down by 14 in the second half.”

The first time these two teams played on Jan. 26 in Manhattan, the Wildcats dominated in an 82-57 blowout of Iowa State. Johnson said this time the team felt like it had something to prove, and showed the improvement it has seen all season despite the losing streak.

“We had a game plan [last time] and we didn’t execute as well,” Johnson said. “We had time to play different teams, and we came in with this game plan again, and we were locked in and knew what we had to do. we really were just more focused in really just bought into the game plan.”

The end result, however, was the same, with Iowa State’s 11th loss in 13 games to end the regular season, this time on senior day. As senior starters Rahshon Clark and Hubalek walked off the Hilton floor for likely the final time in an Iowa State uniform, they waved to an appreciative crowd and Cyclone Alley student section.

Brackins said his 24-point effort was in honor of the four seniors, including Mark Currie and Mike Smith off the bench.

“I really wanted to go out there and win for all the seniors, because I knew it was their last game, so I told myself I was going to go out and do everything I can to try to help that for Rahshon, Smitty, Jiri and Currie.”