Kansas State coach Frank Martin signals a play during the first round of an NCAA men's basketball tournament Midwest Regional game against Southern California in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, March 20, 2008. Kansas State won 80-67.

Omaha, Neb. ? Five-and-a-half minutes into his first NCAA Tournament game, Kansas State red-shirt freshman Bill Walker came to the bench, and his mouth was as on fire as his shooting touch.

“They’re Pac-10, too pretty,” Walker hollered to teammates to fire them up.

Walker was talking about the No. 6 seed USC Trojans, and he wasn’t just talking smack.

Kansas State defeated USC, 80-67, Thursday in the Qwest Center largely because of a 44-27 rebounding advantage – and a quick start by the mercurial Walker.

By winning an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 1988, K-State, seeded 11th in the Midwest Region, advanced to a Saturday matchup against Wisconsin.

Walker didn’t get top billing in a game packed with superstar freshmen. That belonged to teammate Michael Beasley and USC’s O.J. Mayo.

Yet, it was Walker, Mayo’s former high school teammate, who not quite 10 minutes into the game had scored as many points (12) as USC, shooting K-State to a 21-12 advantage.

Behind Walker’s 17 first-half points, K-State took a 37-27 lead. Mayo’s three-point play on a fast-break layup gave USC a 48-47 lead with 13:06 left, but the Wildcats (21-11) closed like veterans and ended the freshman Mayo’s college career with a loss.

Beasley (23 points, 11 rebounds) and Walker (22 points, five rebounds) produced against defenses designed to stop them and were able to set up teammates in ways that exploited the defenses. Fellow freshman Jacob Pullen (11 points, five assists), Ron Anderson (10 points, eight rebounds, including six off the offensive glass) and Dominique Sutton, who played strong defense against Mayo (20 points), all played huge roles.

Freshmen accounted for all but eight of K-State’s points.

First-year Kansas State coach Frank Martin quickly referenced why he thought his young team was so prepared for withstanding the pressures of playing in the NCAA Tournament.

“Going into Kansas, having to play in that kind of an environment, that kind of a basketball game, against that kind of a team, assisted us in coming in prepared to succeed,” Martin said in his opening remarks in the postgame news conference. “That’s what it’s all about this time of year. You’ve got to figure out a way to survive.”

K-State had lost six of nine games coming into the tournament. What changed to make the Wildcats regain the form that enabled them to pull off a Jan. 30 upset victory against Kansas in Manhattan?

“We stopped complaining and stopped wishing for things,” Walker said. “We just went out there and made things happen.”

Kansas State exhibited far more desire than USC, which had held a rebounding advantage in each of its previous eight games.

“Our inability to stop them defensively,” USC coach Tim Floyd explained the loss. “Their efficiency on the offensive end. Their ability to rebound. That was the game.”

For Walker, it was more than that.

“Any win feels good, but this one was kind of special because I knew I was going against a guy who didn’t want to lose to me, so that added something special for me.”

As is the case with most young teams, Kansas State has had trouble performing with consistency. The Wildcats’ ceiling is a high one.

“I think they’re a team that has a chance to advance and go to the regional final, and they split with Kansas, and they’ve got an opportunity to play them on a neutral floor,” Floyd said. “They’ve got great, great talent, and when they rebound it like that, they can play with anybody in the country.”

In 1988, Kansas defeated Kansas State in an Elite Eight game en route to a national title.