Milwaukee native Bruce Weber has Kansas State in the Elite Eight for the first time since 2010

Although no Wisconsin teams qualified for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this season, the state does have a native son one victory from the Final Four:

Bruce Weber. 

Weber guided ninth-seeded Kansas State to a 61-58 victory over fifth-seeded Kentucky Thursday night in the South Regional in Atlanta.

Kansas State (25-11) advanced to the Elite Eight for the 12th time in program history but for only the first time since 2010. The Wildcats face No. 11 Loyola Chicago (31-5) at 5:09 p.m. Saturday.

Weber, 61, is a UW-Milwaukee graduate in his sixth season at Kansas State and 20th season overall as a head coach.

LIVE BRACKET: NCAA Tournament updates

Kansas State prevailed for the first time in 10 tries against Kentucky despite seeing three players foul out, two others commit four fouls and forward Dean Wade, who had missed the previous three games because of a foot injury, struggle in eight minutes. 

“You know, it just shows our resilience, our character of our guys,” Weber said. “We’ve been through a lot this season, and we’ve been able to keep fighting and battling and making the plays when it matters. 

“They made runs. We got 30 fouls, seemed like everybody on our team was fouled out…But we got big rebounds down the stretch, big stops.”

Junior guard Barry Brown scored on a drive to give Kansas State a 60-58 lead with 19 seconds left and finished with 13 points. Junior guard Amaad Wainwright grabbed a rebound after a Kentucky miss, was fouled and hit 1 of 2 free throws with eight seconds left for a 61-58 lead.

Kansas State held on and advanced when Kentucky guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed a contested three-pointer just before the buzzer. 

“Coach put us in a position to win ballgames,” said Kansas State sophomore forward Xavier Sneed, who contributed 22 points and nine rebounds before fouling out. “He did a great job of that all year, especially in practice, making it tougher for moments like this, to make it easier out there on the court for us.”

Weber was an assistant under Gene Keady at Purdue from 1980-1998 before taking over the Southern Illinois program.

He coached at Southern Illinois for five seasons and guided the Salukis into the NCAA Tournament in each of his last two seasons. His fourth team defeated Texas Tech and Georgia to reach the Sweet 16.

Weber took over the Illinois program in 2003-’04 and coached the Illini for nine seasons. 

He guided Illinois to the national title game in 2005 but the Illini fell to North Carolina. 

Weber led Illinois to the NCAA Tournament in six of his nine seasons but was fired after finishing 6-12 in the Big Ten and 17-15 overall in 2011-’12.

He was quickly hired by Kansas State and has guided the Wildcats to four NCAA berths in six seasons.

Illinois has qualified for the NCAA Tournament once in that span – in 2012-’13 under John Groce.

“We have great kids,” Weber said. “You know, I’ve said since the beginning we have a great group. 

“They’re tough. We can yell at them. We can get after them.

"Barry is the leader. When you have a leader that you can get after, and he doesn't back down, it helps with everybody. And they respond.”