P.J. Haggerty scored 23 points for Kansas State in a 99-96 nonconference win against Cal on Thursday in Manhattan, Kan.
Khamari McGriff added 21 points, Nate Johnson had 20 and David Castillo contributed 16 off the bench for Kansas State (3-0), which was outscored 11-1 over the final two minutes.
Castillo shot 4-for-6 from 3-point distance to make him 9-for-11 over the past two games.
Chris Bell scored 27 points and Dai Dai Ames had 25 points, seven assists and five steals for Cal (3-1), which outscored the Wildcats 62-44 in the second half.
The Wildcats shot 67.6% from the floor in the first half and 6-for-8 from long range to build a 55-34 lead.
Ames scored the first five points of the second half to cut the deficit to 16, but Kansas State soon answered with a 9-0 run, getting seven points from Johnson, to go up 66-42.
The Golden Bears got as close as 13 with 9:07 left, but Johnson scored the next five points for Kansas State.
After Cal got the deficit down to 10 with 3:30 remaining, McGriff followed with a three-point play, but the Golden Bears kept chipping away.
The Golden Bears made one final push to cut it to 98-92 on a deep 3-pointer by Bell with 38 seconds left. After Haggerty sank 1 of 2 foul shots with 12 seconds to go, Cal got two late dunks to slice the final margin.
The Wildcats used an early 13-0 run to take the lead for good, turning a 9-5 deficit into an 18-9 lead.
McGriff converted a three-point play with 9:36 remaining in the half to give Kansas State its first double-digit lead at 31-19.
The Wildcats took their biggest lead of the first half at 47-22 on a layup by Haggerty with 6:02 remaining, and matched that margin on another inside basket by Haggerty with 3:01 left.
–Field Level Media
