Oklahoma Basketball: Sooners Lose in Another Thriller with Kansas
By Chip Rouse
The difference this time was four points, but the results were the same. Another Oklahoma basketball loss to 11-time defending conference champion Kansas and a season sweep of the Sooners.
No. 3-ranked Oklahoma may well have lost this game in the opening 10 minutes of the first half, when Kansas fired out to a 20-6 lead as the normally sharp-shooting Sooners couldn’t buy a basket early. Oklahoma made just 2 of its first 19 shots and ended the half with only 8 field goals total in shooting a season-
low 27 percent in the opening 20 minutes. Were it not for making 15 of 18 free throws, OU would have trailed by much more than five points at the half.
The nation’s second-leading scorer, Buddy Hield, was 0 for 6 in first-half field goal tries and finished the half with just six points total, all on free throws.
Oklahoma played much better in the second half and actually held as much as a six-point lead on a couple of occasions. But the Sooners were unable to close out the determined Jayhawks, who kept on successfully firing away from long range and would not allow OU to take over the game.
Hield finally found his three-ball rhythm in the second half, canning five three-pointers, but the 90-percent foul shooter missed the second half of a one-and-one free-throw try that would have tied the game with just over 30 seconds to go. Instead, Kansas’ Devonte Graham calmly sunk two clutch free throws at the other end to virtually salt the win away for the Jayhawks, preserving a share of the Big 12 lead for Kansas with 9-3 West Virginia.
The Sooners lost this game on the scoreboard, but there were many contributing factors. Here is what this fan saw that made the most difference in the final outcome:
- Had Oklahoma shot anywhere near its 43-percent shooting average, the Sooners could have tacked on another 10 to 15 points in the first half and would have held the halftime lead. As well as the Jayhawks shot the ball in the first half (54 percent), they were not able to gain much separation from the Sooners as the half ended.
- Buddy Hield had to shake off an extremely cold shooting start to the game. He failed to make a field goal in six tries. He did warm up in the second half, scoring 18 of his 24 points in the second stanza, but he was closely guarded by Kansas Devonte Graham and had to fight to get open virtually every time he touched the ball.
- Buddy Hield is a proven star and he should win the balloting for National Player of the Year this season, but on Saturday, in front of a sold-out Lloyd Noble Center, he was not the best player on the floor. That honor goes to Devonte Graham of Kansas, who scored a game-high 27 points, including six three-pointers, and did a masterful job shadowing OU’s Hield the entire game.
- College basketball analysts had been saying all week, if Kansas is going to be able to beat Oklahoma on the Sooners’ home floor, the Jayhawks would need to stop OU’s transition game, which could be the best in the country. Coming into Saturday’s rematch with the Jayhawks, the Sooners were averaging over 20 points per game from fast-break transition baskets. OU had just eight points off of transitions against Kansas (the Sooners had 17 transition points in the first game this season between the two teams).
- Oklahoma had won 19 consecutive games at home before losing to Kansas on Saturday.
- Kansas’ Devonte Graham had a career-best 27 points to lead all scorers. Prior to Saturday the sophomore Kansas shooting guard had scored 20 or more points in a game just twice in his career.
- The Sooners ended the game hitting 20 of 60 shots from the field for a shooting percentage of 33 percent, their worst single-game performance of the season.
- Free throws kept the Sooners in the game in the first half. OU made 15 of 18 from the charity stripe in the opening half, while Kansas went to the foul line just twice the entire first half, hitting two of four. This free-throw disparity turned the other way in the second half. Kansas made 13 of 16 second-half free throws; Oklahoma had half as many free throws in the second half as the 18 first-half attempts. The Sooners made seven of nine free throws in the second half, but one of the two misses was by Buddy Hield, who had made all nine of his free throws before missing the second of two free throws that would have tied the game with under 30 seconds remaining in the game.