The Kansas State Wildcats stamped their ticket to the NCAA tournament over the last few days with victories over the Missouri Tigers and Texas Longhorns -- both top 25 teams (and, in the Longhorns case, top 10). So K-State will be making it in pretty much however their season goes from this point on.
Previous bracketology picks had the Wildcats sitting at a 10th seed or so. For simplicity's sake, let's say they're a 10 seed and they'll play a seven seed to start the tournament.
Can you imagine being that seven seed, and walking into a game against a team that, in the last month has beaten two top 10 teams, including one No. 1 team in the country, and rolled through a tough schedule to win potentially nine of their last 10 games (and I'm not even counting the conference tournament)?
Would you be intimidated if you were that seven seed? I sure would. The Wildcats we knew in the preseason, the ones we thought would be snagging a first or second seed in the tournament, seem to be back. They're playing like they were ranked No. 3 in the preseason polls, like they were the preseason pick in the Big 12, like Jacob Pullen was the preseason conference player of the player and a preseason All-American.
The Wildcats are playing their best basketball at the perfect time of year. I think credit for that goes to head coach Frank Martin. We'll see how long he and K-State can keep this up.