Oklahoma Basketball: Eight Reasons Why OU-KU Thriller Was an All-Time Classic

The football Sooners have been in their share of epic games, but for Oklahoma basketball, games like the thriller on Monday night against Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse come maybe once in a lifetime.

It took 55 minutes, 15 longer than the normal length of a regulation game, to decide the outcome of Monday’s showdown of two No. 1 teams. Depending on which national poll you reference this week, either Oklahoma (in the USA Today Coaches Poll) or the Kansas Jayhawks (which sits in the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press Media Top-25) is the top-ranked team.

I can recall some sensational basketball games between Kansas and Oklahoma over the years – not the least of which was the 1988 national championship game won by the underdog Jayhawks – but none, really, that rivaled the back-and-forth intensity and the consistency of difficult shot making on both ends of the court.

Both Oklahoma and Kansas made mini runs in both halves that build 10-point and 11-point leads, respectively, but neither team could put the other away. Both squads repeatedly answered the bell, especially when it got to overtime, leaving this game in doubt all the way to the bitter end if you were a Sooner fan.

There were opportunities on both sides to seal the win, but only when Kansas’ Frank Mason III was able to steal the inbounds pass from Buddy Hield did the final nail in the coffin appear to be in place for the road team from Norman. Even then, though, after Mason was quickly fouled (by Hield) and sunk both free throws, stretching a one-point Kansas lead to three, the Sooners had opportunity in the waning seconds to tie the game. A hurried three-point attempt by Hield went wide left and, just like that, what seemed so possible just minutes before quickly became – once again, when it comes to stealing rode wins at Allen Fieldhouse – the impossible.

No doubt, they will be talking about the Monday night OU-KU game for years to come. There are several things that standout from this game and will ensure that it stands the test of time as one of the all-time classics of the college basketball regular season. Here are a few of the reasons why:

• Before the Oklahoma-Kansas triple-overtime battle on Monday pitting the top two teams in college basketball, based on the national polls, the last time a game featuring No. 1 vs. No. 2 went to triple overtime was in the 1957 national championship game between Kansas and North Carolina.
• The Kansas-Oklahoma game on ESPN Monday night delivered a 1.9 overnight rating, making it the highest rated Big 12 “Big Monday” broadcast on record (which dates back to 2002), ESPN reported that the game also was the cable network’s second highest-rated Monday night game.
• Monday’s triple-overtime game was the third in Kansas’ long, century-plus, basketball history, but the first at historic Allen Fieldhouse.
• Oklahoma’s 106 points is the most ever scored against Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse and the third-most ever against a Jayhawk basketball team.
• It was Kansas’ first win in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup.
• This was the first time in the two-decade history of the Big 12 that two different teams from the conference were No. 1 in the two major polls (AP and USA Today) the same week.
• Kansas had 94 shot attempts in the game. That is the most ever recorded by a Jayhawk team since field-goal stats were first recorded at Kansas. Oklahoma had 88 field-goal attempts, which is not a Sooner record, however. OU had 147 field-goal tries in scoring a record 170 points in 1989 against U.S. International.
• Buddy Hield’s eight three-point field goals against Kansas is the most against a Jayhawk team in since 2009, when Alan Voskuil of Texas Tech sunk eight threes in a game.