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OU Basketball: Five Reasons Sooners Will Get a Third Shot at No. 1 Kansas

By Chip Rouse

Feb 20, 2016; Morgantown, WV, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard Buddy Hield (24) is fouled by West Virginia Mountaineers guard Jevon Carter (2) during the second half at the WVU Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 20, 2016; Morgantown, WV, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard Buddy Hield (24) is fouled by West Virginia Mountaineers guard Jevon Carter (2) during the second half at the WVU Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports /
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OU basketball, this season more commonly referred to as Buddy Ball,  is moving on to play No. 2 seed West Virginia in the semifinal round of the Big 12 Tournament.

The Sooners overcame another scary late-game charge, this time from longtime Big 12 Tournament nemesis Iowa State, holding on for a 79-76 quarterfinal win to move on to face another ranked opponent in the No. 9 Mountaineers.

Mar 10, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard Buddy Hield (24) shoots and draws a foul from Iowa State Cyclones forward Jameel McKay (1) in the second half during the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. The Oklahoma Sooners won 79-76. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 10, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard Buddy Hield (24) shoots and draws a foul from Iowa State Cyclones forward Jameel McKay (1) in the second half during the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. The Oklahoma Sooners won 79-76. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports /

The final score actually was closer than it might have been had the Cyclones’ Deonte Burton not hit a desperation three-point shot from half court as the final buzzer sounded.

Oklahoma, now 25-6 on the season and, for a fifth straight season under head coach Lon Kruger, having improved on their previous season’s win total, swept the two games with West Virginia in the regular season. The Sooners won by a bucket in Norman on a buzzer-beating tip-in by sophomore Khadeem Lattin, then rallied late to overcome a second-half deficit at West Virginia and defeat the Mountaineers by 14 points behind a 29-point performance by Buddy Hield.

The Sooners own an 8-4 record this season against teams ranked in the AP Top 25. That is second only to Big 12 champion and No. 1 tournament seed Kansas. OU and West Virginia have met 11 times since the Mountaineers became a member of the Big 12 in 2011, with the Sooners winning eight of the 11 games.

West Virginia features perhaps the most balanced offense in the Big 12 with six players averaging nine points or better per game. The Mountaineers scoring leaders are senior guard Jaysean Paige and junior forward Devin Williams, who average 14.2 and 12.9 points, respectively, per contest.

Mar 10, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; Oklahoma Sooners forward Khadeem Lattin (12) blocks the shot of Iowa State Cyclones guard Matt Thomas (21) in the first half during the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 10, 2016; Kansas City, MO, USA; Oklahoma Sooners forward Khadeem Lattin (12) blocks the shot of Iowa State Cyclones guard Matt Thomas (21) in the first half during the Big 12 Conference tournament at Sprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports /

The Sooners’ quarterfinal win over Iowa State, a battle between the No. 3 and No. 6 teams in this year’s conference tournament, not only kept them in contention for a fourth Big 12 Tournament crown but prevented the Cyclones from winning a third consecutive conference title, something that only Kansas and Oklahoma have accomplished in the 20-year history of the Big 12.

Here is something to ponder, with the NCAA Tournament looming and the excitement of March Madness beginning to rev up among fans of college basketball, if the Sooners were to go on and win their fourth Big 12 Tournament championship, they will have had to beat three top-25 teams (No. 1 Kansas, No. 9 West Virginia and No. 21 Iowa State) and two teams currently ranked in the top 10 in the country. I don’t believe any other team competing in a conference tournament this week will be able to make that claim.

Here are five compelling reasons why Oklahoma will make it three straight wins over West Virginia and live to see another day and a third matchup this season against Kansas in the Big 12 championship game on Saturday.

  • That is what college basketball fans want to see: a third game between these two national powers. The first two games, both won by Kansas, were decided by a combined seven points. And the classic three-overtime thriller at Kansas in early January, in the mind of many fans, still reigns as the game of the year in  college basketball.
  • Buddy Hield. What more is there to say about what the Sooner superstar has accomplished this season. The nation’s second-leading scorer dropped a career-high 46 points on Kansas in the first game this season between the two teams, and he led the Sooner comeback in Oklahoma’s win at West Virginia in February, scoring a game-high 29 points. Hield is the favorite in the words of most college basketball experts to be named National Player of the Year, and when you have that guy on your team, you are never out of any game.
  • The Sooners will not rely on three-point shooting to get them victories. For most of the season, Oklahoma has put up a lot of points because of its uncanny ability to have multiple players shoot a high percentage behind the three-point line. It was considered a bad game if the Sooners didn’t make at least 10 three-balls in a game. Now we are at the time of the season when one bad game can send you home, expect OU to execute more inside passes and drive-and-dribble penetration to the basket. Of course, they will take the three-point shot when it is available, but expect Hield and Co. to execute a game plan very much like what we saw against Iowa State, taking just 19 three-point shots in the game and scoring 34 points in the paint. Twenty-four of Hield’s 39 points against Iowa State came on shots inside the three-point line and most of them at the rim.
  • Protecting the basketball. In games late in the regular season, Oklahoma has had difficulty protecting the ball. The Sooners committed 17 turnovers in their final two regular-season games and were fortunate to win both, over Baylor and TCU. On Friday night in the Big 12 Tournament, OU will go up against one of the best teams in the country in forcing turnovers. In the OU game at West Virginia, the Sooners actually forced the Mountaineers into more turnovers (12 to 9), and this has been an issue with West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins in the latter stages of the season. The Mountaineer head coach acknowledges that his team is very good pressuring the ball and forcing opponents into mistakes, but West Virginia hasn’t done a very good job lately, either, protecting the ball when it is on offense. The Sooners will handle the West Virginia pressure, and that will be a big difference in OU recording a third-straight win over the Mountaineers. Third time is charm.
  • I’m betting that Oklahoma wants this game more than West Virginia does. The Sooners have something to prove. They are the sixth-ranked team in the country, and yet they are only the three seed in their conference tournament. West Virginia would like to snap the two-game losing streak to Oklahoma this season, but by the same token, the Sooners would like nothing more than to sweep three games from the team that finished just ahead of them in the regular-season standings. Finally, the Sooners still have an outside chance of earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. A win over No. 9-ranked West Virginia would secure a No. 2 seed, but it is the third shot at Kansas and a chance at a top seed in the NCAA Basketball Championship that they are really after. Momentum and added motivation is on the side of the visiting team when the Sooners take on West Virginia in the Big 12 semifinals.
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