KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It may have seemed like old times for Roy Williams, but not necessarily in the way it might appear.

Williams' ninth-ranked North Carolina squad defeated Kansas State 80-70 Tuesday night in the championship game of the CBE Hall of Fame Classic at Sprint Center. North Carolina outscored Kansas State 17-2 in the final 3:28 to erase a five-point deficit and pull away.

And though Williams improved to 36-4 all-time vs. Kansas State, his flashbacks weren't back to his time as head coach at Kansas.

"I told the guys (that) in practice we work a lot in practice being down six with three minutes to play," Williams said. "So I felt like we had a chance. I felt like we needed one stop each time down there. (K-State) only got off one bad shot."

"They were more hungry than we were," forward Justin Jackson said. "Obviously they're a great team. They were more physical than we were. And (guard Kamau) Stokes shot the mess out of the ball. To play against that and come out with a win I think it was really good for us."

Jackson led the Tar Heels with 22 points and was named the tournament MVP. He was joined in double figures by forward Kennedy Meeks with 15, guard Theo Pinson with 11 points and forward Brice Johnson with 10.

Kansas State coach Bruce Weber was left to ponder what went wrong in the final 3:28. "Both," he said when asked whether he would focus on 36-plus minutes of strong play against the preseason No. 1-ranked team or the collapse in the final 3:28.

"Why do we get there (up five), and then how do we finish it. That's part of moving forward with it. We've got to get better in practice."

Kansas State (4-1) was led by Stokes, who scored a career-high 24 points. Guard Justin Edwards added 10 points.

"I think everybody played well," Stokes said. "We played well the whole game. We just didn't execute at the end."

Guard Wesley Iwundu, Kansas State's second-leading scorer coming into the game, battled foul trouble the whole game. He picked up two fouls in the first half, and picked up two more within a minute. He sat with four fouls at the 15:07 mark.

"We competed without Wes being in there," Weber said. "Usually he's playing the most minutes. He never could get any rhythm."

But the Wildcats did not go away, even without Iwundu. After Isaiah Hicks' slam gave the Tar Heels a four-point lead, the Cats responded with a 9-0 run.

"They totally outplayed us, but we were still there," Williams said of the situation at the final media timeout. "I don't want us to depend on (the late comeback). I'm only so old. But I think you can build on it. What you have to build on are the mistakes you made to put us in that spot."

Neither team led by more than five points until North Carolina's run at the end of the game.

The Tar Heels' strategy early was to take it inside against K-State. The Heels couldn't make their shots from the outside, missing their first five from 3-point range in the first half, but they made up for it in the interior.

Their first five made baskets came from inside five feet. It wasn't until Jackson hit a 3-pointer at the 9:16 mark that North Carolina connected from outside five feet.

The teams traded 9-0 runs midway through the first half. Kansas State's run gave the Wildcats a 17-11 lead, but North Carolina resumed the lead with its run.

The Wildcats tied the score at 24 on Carlbe Ervin's steal and layup with 4:40 left in the half.

The Wildcats took a 32-30 lead into halftime. Stokes had nine points and Edwards had eight. Jackson had nine points to lead the Tar Heels.

NOTES: Kansas State is 1-5 all-time vs. North Carolina, including 0-5 in neutral-site games. But the Wildcats have plenty of experience against Tar Heels coach Roy Williams. Williams coached at Kansas from 1988-2003 and owns a 36-4 career record against the Wildcats. ... Williams is 8-2 against Kansas State in Kansas City, site of the Big 8/Big 12 tournament. He lost his first two encounters (1989, 1993) and won his next seven (1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001). ... North Carolina beat Kansas State in the Elite Eight in 1981.