On Monday night in Lawrence. Kan., the country will be introduced to the first ESPN “Big Monday” broadcast of the season with the offering of Oklahoma vs. Kansas.
There are plenty of story lines around this Big 12 matchup, and you can be certain that Allen Fieldhouse, one of the meccas in college basketball, will be rocking with rabid Jayhawk fans decked out in blue and proudly reveling in the famous “Rock Chalk” chant. Clearly not a very inviting venue for a visiting team under any circumstances, but especially not one sporting an undefeated record and claiming to be an equal this season to the 11-time defending conference-champion Jayhawks.
These two teams are expected to be No. 1 and No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll when it comes out later today, with Kansas holding down the top spot and 12-0 Oklahoma right behind. That is a big enough development because it happens very rarely in a college basketball season that the top two teams are paired against each other in a regular season game. Even rarer is when two No. 1 teams take the court in the same game.
That is what we have with the Sooners and the perennial Big 12 basketball champions on Monday night. Oklahoma is No. 1 in the USA Today Coaches Poll for the week of Jan. 4, with Kansas in the No. 2 spot. The Sooners received 20 of the 32 first-place votes in this week’s USA Today weekly college basketball rankings, the Jayhawks received 11 votes and former No. 1 Michigan State received one vote.
It has been 26 years since the last time a team ranked No. 1 in the AP poll faced No. 2 in the AP poll and both teams were from the Big 12. In case you were wondering, those two teams were No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Kansas in the semifinal round of the Big Eight postseason tournament in 1989-90. The Sooners won that game 95-77.
The Sooners come into Monday night’s showdown averaging 87 points per game on offense. That’s the sixth best in the country. Kansas is third, however, averaging 88.3 points per game.
Four Oklahoma starters are averaging double digits in scoring, led by reigning Big 12 Player of the Year Buddy Hield, who is scoring at a 24.7 clip and is hitting an impressive 50 percent of his shots. The same four Sooners (Hield, Isaiah Cousins, Jordan Woodard and Ryan Spangler) are also shooting 45 percent or better from the three-point line. This could be a key matchup area against the Jayhawks, who currently rank in the middle of the conference in defending three-point shots.
Oklahoma has made at least 10 three-point shots in seven of its 12 wins this season
The Sooners aren’t the only team, however, that can light up the scoreboard with long-range accuracy. The Jayhawks as a team lead the conference in three-point accuracy, hitting 46 percent of their three-point attempts. just ahead of Oklahoma. Kansas junior guard Wayne Selden, Jr. leads the Big 12, shooting 54 percent behind the three-point arc. He and OU’s Hield are both averaging three treys per game.
Kansas also has four starters averaging 10 or more points a game, led by Selden and Perry Ellis, both averaging around 15 points per game.
Offensively, Oklahoma is one of the better shooting teams in the country, but if the Sooners are to pull off what would be a huge win in this game, they are going to have to get it done on the defensive end, which has been a big reason behind the Sooners success this season. OU ranks ninth in the country in field-goal percentage defense, holding 12 opponents to 37 percent shooting, and just 29 percent from three-point range.
The Sooners are going to have to do a better job, though, than they did on Saturday against then No. 11 Iowa State. The Cyclones shot 51 percent from the field and made 44 percent of their three-point tries, both season highs against Oklahoma.
Rebounding will be another area to keep an eye on. Ryan Spangler has been a beast on the boards this season for the Sooners, who lead the Big 12 in rebounding. OU is averaging eight more rebounds per game than their opponents, led by Spangler’s 10 boards per game, second best in the conference. Spangler is one of only 22 players in college basketball who is averaging 10 rebounds and 10 points per game this season.
Oklahoma’s basketball history against Kansas is pretty much like everyone else against the Jayhawks: heavily dominated by Kansas. The Jayhawks are the only Big 12 team with an all-time winning record over the Sooners, however. OU has not won a game in Allen Fieldhouse since 1993 and is 16-73 all-time when playing at Kansas.
The teams split their two games last season, with Kansas winning 85-78 in Lawrence and the Sooners defeating the Jayhawks 75-73 in Norman in the regular-season finale.
So which No. 1 team will survive on Monday? Conventional wisdom tells me that Kansas is pretty much unbeatable when playing at home and in front of a national television audience. It doesn’t really seem to matter how good the opponent is. Allen Fieldhouse is where some of the best teams in college basketball come to lose. That’s just the way it is.
In the last 22 years, Kansas has lost at home just 14 times in the regular season. And since 2007, the Jayhawks’ record at Allen Fieldhouse is a phenomenal 140-3. Given all that, it is would seem highly unlikely that the Sooners would walk away as only the fourth team in nine seasons to leave Allen Fieldhouse with win over the Jayhawks.
But this is not your average Oklahoma Sooner basketball team – and, believe me, there have been plenty of those. This is a very good Sooner team that has played together for a long time (four OU players have started every game for the Sooners for three seasons, a total of 80 games to date). They know each other well, they play for each other and they have a true National Player of the Year candidate in Buddy Hield. Their head coach, Lon Kruger, also is a proven winner, and the Sooners have improved every year under his leadership in the now five seasons he has been at Oklahoma, and the 2015-16 edition of the Sooners is well on its way to a fourth-consecutive 20-win season.
So I’m playing the contrarian card and going against what logic and history might dictate. I’m going with Oklahoma to pull the improbable upset: Oklahoma 88, Kansas 83.