Oklahoma City » Jimmer Fredette scored 21 points and dished out five assists on Saturday night, but BYU's junior guard was the first to admit it wasn't one of his better performances of the season.

Fredette said it was closer to one of his worst as the Cougars were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament 84-72 by Kansas State on Saturday night at the Ford Center.

"It's definitely disappointing," Fredette said. "We had a great season. We were able to get past the first round finally, but we ran into a really good team tonight, and they just played a little bit better than we did."

Fredette got off to a smooth start, scoring six points in the first 10 minutes as the Cougars got out to leads of 10-0 and 23-13. But the Wildcats changed their defensive game plan, putting Jacob Pullen on the high-scoring guard, rather than Dominique Sutton, with much better success.

"They started double-teaming me even in the backcourt," Fredette said. "I had to give the ball up a lot, and they are a very aggressive defensive team ... they had a good game plan and executed it pretty well."

Fredette did not score in the final 9 minutes, 19 seconds of the first half, and got his pocket picked several times. The Wildcats went on a 28-8 run during the BYU star's scoreless stretch.

Fredette opened the second half with a driving layup, and finally got a 3-pointer to fall three minutes later, cutting KSU's lead to 45-40.

But the Wildcats scored the next five points to squelch the uprising.

Later, Fredette missed a huge 3-pointer that would have cut the lead to three. Even when he scored 37 points against Florida on Thursday, Fredette didn't make a lot of shots during the tournament that he normally makes.

"Just wanted to make him work for everything," Pullen said of his defense on Fredette. "He's a good player, though. He still found ways to score the ball. I give him a lot of credit because he is an amazing scorer. He found ways to score regardless of the defensive presence."

Fredette finished 5-for-13 from the field, 1-for-4 from 3-point range. He did go 10-for-11 from the free-throw line, as officials started calling the game tighter in the second half, penalizing the Wildcats for their hand checks more than they did in the first 20 minutes.

"There comes a time where other teams are going to be really physical with you and you have to have players make plays," BYU coach Dave Rose said when asked about the officiating and excessive contact allowed in the first half by the officiating crew of Mike Wood, Michael Eades and Roger Ayers, officials who regularly work ACC and Atlantic-10 games.

drew@sltrib.com