Oklahoma basketball: Sooners rally late to rock Jayhawks’ chalk
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma basketball phenom Trae Young scored 18 second-half points and the Sooners outscored Kansas 11-2 over the final four minutes of the game to defeat the No. 5-ranked Jayhawks 85-80 before a sellout crowd at OU’s Lloyd Noble Center on Tuesday.
After launching 39 of Oklahoma’s 82 total shot attempts in the Sooners’ 83-81 overtime loss Saturday at Oklahoma State, Young had just nine field goal attempts in the game against a stubborn Kansas defense, hitting seven of them, including two of his patented deep three balls. He also made eight consecutive free throws in the closing five minutes to keep the Sooners within striking distance of the Big 12-leading Jayhawks, who led the game for most of the second half.
Young finished with 26 points and nine assists, but in this game, unlike his previous outing, the Sooner magic man was more of a ball distributor, and his teammates came through, delivering 67 percent of the Oklahoma offense.
With just under four minutes to go in the opening half, Oklahoma opened up a 10 point advantage, but Kansas closed out the half with a 12-4 run, the cut the Sooner lead to 43-41 at the break.
The Jayhawks opened up the second half with a three-pointer by Svi Mykhailiuk to take a 44-43 lead, and a little over four minutes into the second half managed to widen their advantage to nine points. Kansas led by 10 points, 72-62 midway through the second half, although the Sooners continued to slowly chip away at the Jayhawk advantage.
The turning point of the game after a TV timeout with 3:46 remaining in regulation. With Kansas leading by a bucket, 78-76, Sooner head coach Lon Kruger inserted redshirt sophomore Matt Freeman into the game with the sole purpose of fouling Jayhawk big man Udoka Azubuike, a 38-percent free-throw shooter on every Kansas possession.
Kruger should send a big thank you note to Kansas coach Bill Self, because the Sooner head coaches’ “Hack-a Dok” strategy worked to perfection. On four of the Jayhawks’ next five possessions, Freeman fouled the KU center, and he proceeded to miss six consecutive free throws. Inexplicably, Self left the Jayhawks’ worst foul shooter in the game, which proved to be the deciding factor and enabled Oklahoma to pull out the home victory, the Sooners 13th consecutive win on the home hardwood.
That allowed the Sooners to erase an 80-78 Kansas lead with 2:32 remaining, courtesy of a 7-0 run to close out the game.
Christian James had 15 points for the Sooners, and Young’s freshman teammate Brady Manek added 14 on four of six from beyond the three-point line. Mykhailiuk scored a team-high 24 for the Jayhawks, including six three-pointers, and Malik Newman contributed 20.
The win snapped a two-game Oklahoma losing streak, giving the Sooners a 15-4 record for the season and 5-3 in the Big 12. OU is now in a four-way second-place tie with West Virginia, Texas Tech and Kansas State, all one game back of Kansas (16-4, 6-2). The victory is the Sooners’ fourth this season over a team ranked in the top 10.
Next up for the No. 12 Sooners is a trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for a Big 12-SEC Basketball Challenge showdown with Alabama on Saturday.