Oklahoma basketball: Kansas buries Sooners with 28-7 dominating run
By Chip Rouse
Kansas played 10 players but the Jayhawks only really needed the starting five in their 19th consecutive home win over the men’s Oklahoma basketball team on Saturday.
The horrors of Allen Field House continue for the Sooners. Kansas put together a 28-7 run over a 10-minute stretch that spanned the final seven minutes of the first half and carried over into the opening three minute of the second, literally signaling lights out for the visitors from Norman.
Oklahoma has not won at Kansas since 1993, although the Sooners came very close to ending the winless drought four seasons ago, losing in double overtime, 109-106, with Buddy Hield lighting up the scoreboard with 46 points. In 93 games played in Lawrence between these two longtime conference foes, OU has prevailed only 16 times.
All five Kansas starters scored in double figures in Saturday’s game and accounted for 76 of the Jayhawks 87 total points. With a 14-point win already in Norman this season, Kansas swept the season series with the Sooners for the first time in three seasons.
Oklahoma Sooners Basketball
Kansas senior Marcus Garrett was the star of the game in the Jayhawks 17-point win on Saturday. Garrett made six of the Jayhawks 11 three-pointers on his way to a career-high 24 points. Seven-foot center Udoka Azubuike contributed 15 points and also grabbed 17 rebounds in recording his 11th double-double of the season.
Kristian Doolittle connected on five three-balls and had a game-high 27 points for Oklahoma. The senior forward, who went to the same high school, Edmond (Oklahoma) Memorial, as Kansas coach Bill Self, also led the Sooners with 12 rebounds. Doolittle and Austin Reaves, with 12 points, made half of OU’s 24 field goals in the game.
Kansas added to its domination in this series, winning for the 150th time in the 218-game series that began in 1920.
Here are a dozen more notable numbers from Kansas’ impressive win over Oklahoma:
5 — KU’s Marcus Garrett made six of nine three-point shots in scoring 24 points against the
Sooners. He had only made five threes in all of his other Big 12 games combined this season.
9 — Oklahoma committed nine turnovers in the game, but just one in the second half.
11 — The 11 lead changes in the game — all in the first half — were the most in a game in Allen Field House since Kansas-Stanford in December 2018.
14 — Kansas pulled down 13 offensive rebounds and parlayed those into 14 second-chance points. The Sooners had 10 offensive rebounds, but just four second-chance points.
22 – Kansas has held its opponent below 70 points 22 times this season out of a total of 25 games.
24 — Minutes played by the Sooners’ leading scorer, Brady Manek, who scored seven points and had to sit a good part of the first half after collecting his second personal foul
42 — Oklahoma came into the game wanting to keep the ball away from KU’s Udoka Azubuike and David Montgomery in an effort to prevent them from making easy shots at the rim. Kansas ended up outscoring OU 42-32 in the painted area.
50 — Kansas shot 50 percent from behind the arch against the Sooners. That is their second highest percentage this season from deep.
46-35 — Amount by which Kansas outrebounded Oklahoma
58.8 — Kansas’ second-half shooting percentage against OU after shooting 38 percent in the first half.
87 — The 87 points scored by Kansas were the most scored against Oklahoma this season.
16,300 — Attendance at Allen Field House for the game. That’s almost 8,000 more than the 8,484 who attended OU’s win over West Virginia at Lloyd Noble Center last Saturday.