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Jake Trotter, ESPN Staff Writer 6y

Kansas State's Barry Brown Jr. exits after suffering eye injury

Men's College Basketball, Kansas State Wildcats

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas State guard Barry Brown Jr. left the team's Big 12 Tournament semifinal game Friday against Kansas after suffering an eye injury. 

The injury occurred less than two minutes into the Wildcats' 83-67 loss to their in-state rivals.  Brown suffered the injury after taking an arm to the face from Jayhawks guard Devonte' Graham.

Brown was taken to the locker room twice in the first half before returning to the K-State bench with a visibly swollen right eye. The official said Brown had slight bleeding in the corner of his eye.

"You can't prepare for Barry going down the first play,'' Wildcats coach Bruce Weber said. "He had very little vision. He wanted to play. He kept saying, 'Put me in.' But I held up fingers and asked him how many and he couldn't say.''

Weber added that Brown was evaluated by an ophthalmologist.

"His eye was damaged, hopefully not too severe that he can't come back" for the NCAA tournament, Weber said.

Brown entered Friday's matchup averaging 16.5 points per game and catapulted the Wildcats past TCU in the Big 12 quarterfinals Thursday with a game-winning layup in overtime.

"It's very tough when one of your main contributors goes down with an injury,'' said Makol Mawien, who scored a career-high 29 points for Kansas State in the loss. "We just had to step up and play hard.''

The Wildcats are already without All-Big 12 forward Dean Wade, who suffered a foot injury in the TCU game. 

"[Wade] wanted to play and we could've played him. But we didn't feel it was worth the chance," Weber said.

Kansas State is projected to make the NCAA tournament as a No. 8 seed, according to ESPN's latest Bracketology. 

"I hope we get them both back [for the tournament] -- but we showed without them that we're a pretty good ballclub," Weber said of his injured stars.

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