KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Play after play with the game on the line Texas A&M showed it's more than ready to return tothe NCAA Tournament.

A&M guard Dominique Kirk twice hit 3-pointers just ahead of the shot clock, including an improbable bank shot.

"It was just a prayer," he said.

The league's worst free-throw shooting team hit 5 of 6 free throws in the final 4 minutes.

And when it looked like Michael Beasley, the league's best player, was going to carry Kansas State to victory, the Aggies showed they are one of the league's best teams with gritty stops.

It all added up to a 63-60 A&M victory in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals, the first time the Aggies have won back-to-back tournament games in 12 tries.

"There is a fine line between a lot of teams in college basketball," A&M first-year head coach Mark Turgeon said. "Beasley's [last] shot went all the way in and came out. It was our night, we'll take it."

It's been a remarkable week for Aggie basketball.

The A&M women will play for the Big 12 Tournament championship for the first time Saturday night. The men had been 1-11 in the previous 11 tournaments.

When Kansas State missed a couple of desperation 3-pointers with time running out, Aggie fans celebrated much like they did when A&M beat Kansas State for the 1998 Big 12 football championship.

And with good reason.

A&M came to Kansas City as an NCAA Tournament bubble team, having lost five of its last seven games. And it wasn't just that A&M had been losing. It had been blown out at Texas and Oklahoma. And that the Aggies lost at home to Oklahoma State and Nebraska, a pair of teams hopeful to get into the NIT.

A&M was a first-round loss away from hosting an NIT game.

But in two games within 24 hours, the Aggies showed the Sweet 16 isn't out of the question.

That's the beauty of March Madness, and the Aggies are now a player, not a watcher.

Kirk did his best imitation of unheralded Sirr Parker, who scored a touchdown in double overtime to give the Aggies the 1998 football championship.

Kirk had 19 points by hitting 5 of 6 3-pointers. He played like a senior who has started 129 straight games.

It was the mild-mannered Kirk's second highest scoring game of his career, right behind 21 points he had in last season's NCAA Tournament victory over Louisville.

Kirk banged home a 3 to make it 52-46, then he hit another one the next time down the court.

Each time A&M's offense had nothing going with the shot clock running down.

Kirk quieted the partisan Kansas State crowd and helped A&M offset a 25-point effort by Beasley.

Because of A&M's solid play, the crowd seldom reached the level it did before tip-off when Beasley was given his Big 12 player of the year award.

Beasley, at times, was unstoppable. He had more moves than the Aggie dance team, but A&M never allowed him to dominate, which bodes well for the what's ahead.

There are few players the Aggies will face that will be as good as Beasley.

A&M's big men -- Bryan Davis, Joseph Jones and Chinemelu Elonu -- each picked up four fouls while defending Beasley, but they never backed down.

The Aggies kept running bodies at Beasley. Even small forward Beau Muhlbach mixed it up with Beasley a couple of times.

A&M's Herculean effort put a dent in the Kansas City economy by preventing the Kansas State-Kansas rubber match, but earned revenge for a 75-54 loss the Aggies suffered at Kansas State on Jan. 19.

"The sky was falling in Aggieland when they beat us the first time," Turgeon said. "So this one meant a lot to us."

Indeed.

It showed that sunny days in Bryan-College Station could last past March on into April.

A&M's DeAndre Jordan played 7 minutes in the first half. The 7-foot freshman has a stomach virus, a school official said. Jordan was taken to the hospital during Thursday night's quarterfinal game against Iowa State to make sure it wasn't appendicitis.

Turgeon said Jordan was able to eat something Friday and he's hopeful he will be able to play against Kansas.

• Robert Cessna's e-mail address is robert.cessna@theeagle.com.