Oklahoma basketball: OU puts No. 4 ranking on the line at K-State
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma basketball coach Lon Kruger is a legend at Kansas State, and that’s where the fourth-ranked Sooners are headed for a game Tuesday night.
The Sooners hold a slight advantage in the all-time series with Kansas State (107-98), but that advantage is nowhere to be found when the two teams square off in Manhattan. Kansas State is 60-36 against Oklahoma when the Sooners go on the road to play at K-State.
Kansas State has won the last five meetings between these two teams in Manhattan. Oklahoma has not won at K-State since 2012, in Kruger’s first season at OU.
Two seasons ago, national player of the year Buddy Hield and the Sooners went to Kansas State with the nation’s top ranking in the USA Today Coaches Poll (No. 2 in the Associated Press poll). OU came away on the short end of an 80-69 defeat. Kruger is just 5-7 against his alma mater and the school he served as head coach from 1986-90.
Every night is a battle in the Big 12, and winning on the road in the league is especially difficult, no matter where or who you play.
Kansas State (12-5, 2-3) is fresh off a near upset of Kansas at historic Allen Fieldhouse, where the Wildcats came up short by a single point of defeating the 13-time defending Big 12 champions on their on floor.
The Sooners bring the country’s highest-scoring offense (93.6 points a game) to Kansas State’s Octagon of Doom, otherwise known as Bramlage Coliseum, where coach Kruger’s retired K-State No. 12 jersey hangs from the rafters.
The high-scoring Oklahoma offense is led by freshman phenom Trae Young, who leads college basketball in both scoring (30.1 points per game) and assists (10.0). Young has scored 25 or more points in 14 of the Sooners’ 16 games this season.
The Sooners have scored at least 90 points 11 times this season and gone over the century mark on six occasions. They will be going up against a Kansas State defense that has allowed opponents an average of 66.4 points a game.
Kansas State has four starters scoring in double figures this season, led by Barry Brown, averaging 16.6 points per game. Dean Wade averages 15.0 points per contest and is shooting 43.2 percent from three-point range.
For the 14-2 Sooners, the game plan for Tuesday’s game should be: get it going early, keep it going late and get out of town with the W.
Game prediction: Oklahoma over the Wildcats 84-75