Villanova loses guard Justin Moore in an overtime dogfight with Kansas State

From the outside looking in, the basketball that Villanova displayed in its 72-71 overtime loss at Kansas State, was extremely inspiring — and confusing.

The first half saw K-State outmuscle the Wildcats’ guard play, with insult added to injury — literally — after star guard Justin Moore left the game in the first half with a sprained right knee. He would not return.

OK, so Moore their catalyst, goes down, but the Wildcats continue to claw with smothering defensive play coupled with clutch shots from the line, particularly in the second half, clawing from a 33-25 halftime deficit to tie the game at 45 following a Mark Armstrong floater with 12 minutes and 30 seconds left.

That play gave hope but the one that made it a game didn’t arrive until under a minute when guard Jordan Longino willed his way into a bank shot that tied the game at 63, eerily quieting a sold-out crowd dressed in all-white at the Bramlage Coliseum. Credit Longino as the hero in OT, as his repeated drives to the basket, forced K-State to foul, and get him to the line repeatedly. His pair of clutch free throws after getting fouled for the second time in overtime, put the Wildcats ahead 68-65 with 2:59 remaining.

Here’s an interesting stat: The game was the first time since the 1963-64 season that K-State had three consecutive games that went into overtime. Their recent wins over Oral Roberts and North Alabama both arrived in extra time.

This one was nearly the first, however, that K-State (7-2) head coach Jerome Tang almost found himself losing in overtime until his senior guard Tylor Perry hit a monster three-point with 3.9 seconds remaining.

Cue K-State miscues like a shot clock violation with 4:51 remaining to give Villanova (6-3) the ball back and a clutch three from Hakim Hart to bring the game within one at 58-57. The fight from the Wildcats in the second half helped to negate the fact that in the previous minutes, the highlights (or lowlights, really) saw a Villanova team that went scoreless for nearly nine minutes and only had one player in double digits in guard TJ Bamba with 9:45 remaining.

But that’s neither here nor there, the Wildcats crunched a 10-point K-State lead to just four with 3:20 remaining and looked the part of a team ready to get back to winning ways after its upset loss to Drexel in the fifth-place game of the Big 5 Classic last Saturday.

Longino led with a team-high 16 points off the bench while Bamba added 15. Tyler Burton was a workhorse finishing with a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds. Kansas State was led by a 26-point night from guard Arthur Kaluma and Cam Carter had 16. Perry, the hero, finished with 10.

The adage of a game being “back and forth” took center stage as both teams traded shots, with the Wildcats looking to regain a lead while the Wildcats from Manhattan, Kansas, tried to keep them at bay, admittedly with relative ease through timely drives to the paint and layups that showcased their ability to physically outmatch a Nova team that customarily thrives on playing bang-bang basketball.

However, the Wildcats used the second half to showcase its ability to claw back and hit timely shots, the last-second jumper from Bamba to potentially win it in regulation aside, of course. In all, the Wildcats shot 34.8% from the field, 35.5% from three.

» READ MORE: Behind Villanova’s struggles: A three-point shooting slump and troubles against the zone

Villanova returns home, well, at least back to Philly to take on UCLA in its second game in a week at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday (7 p.m., ESPN+). The game is the nightcap in a pair of big-time college basketball programs coming to Philly to play Big 5 teams as Penn will welcome No. 16 Kentucky to South Philly for a noon tipoff.