Oklahoma basketball: KSU’s favorite son leads OU into Octagon of Doom

Oklahoma basketball had not won at Iowa State in nine seasons. Now they head to Manhattan, Kansas, where winning has been almost as rare for the Sooners.

The 9th-ranked Sooners are at Kansas State on Tuesday, riding a wave of success that has produced eight wins in the last nine games, including three Big 12 road wins during that span.

The biggest story line in Tuesday’s game, though, has little to do with two teams headed in opposite directions this season and more to do with the return home of Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger, one of K-State most legendary basketball alums.

Kruger was a two-time Big Eight Player of the Year during his playing career with the Wildcats in the early 1970s, and he coached at Kansas State four four seasons from 1986-90. His No. 12 jersey is proudly displayed in the rafters at K-State’s Bramlage Coliseum, popularly known as the Octagon of Doom.

That is an apt description of Oklahoma’s experience playing at Kansas State. Kruger’s Sooner teams have won just once in nine games at Kansas State. Similar to the situation going to Iowa State this past weekend, Oklahoma has not won in eight consecutive trips to Kansas State.

OU won in Manhattan in Kruger’s very first season as the Sooners’ head coach in 2012 and hasn’t won there since. This is not really a recent phenomenon. The home team has historically dominated this all-time series, which Oklahoma leads, but by a narrow 110-102 margin.

The game will be broadcast on ESPN2, beginning at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

What fans need to know about the 213th meeting between OU-KSU

• Sooner head coach Lon Kruger is 8-11 against Kansas State during his 10 seasons at Oklahoma.
• De’Vion Harmon led Oklahoma with 16 points in the earlier game this season against Kansas State in Norman. Dajuan Gordon, the Wildcats’ third leading scorer on the season, led K-State with 13 points in the 76-50 Oklahoma win.
• In his first three games back after sitting out a couple of games because of COVID contact tracing, Austin Reaves has averaged 21.3 points for the Sooners.
• Reaves averages 22.1 in road games this season, which leads the Big 12.
• Nijel Pack, Kansas State’s top scorer (12.3 a game and 39 percent from beyond the three-point line) did not play in the first game in Norman. Pack had a season-high 26 points, including eight three-pointers, in a win in late January over Texas A&M.
• Kansas State is not a strong offensive team. The Cats average a Big 12-worst 61.3 points a game. They attempt to compensate for their inconsistent offense by playing solid defense and keeping the game in the 60s. Four of their last seven opponents have been held to fewer than 70 points.
• Kansas State historically is a difficult team to beat when playing at home. But this season, the Wildcats are only 4-12 overall and 0-7 in Big 12 action. Oklahoma on the other hand is 4-3 this season in Big 12 road games.
• K-State has lost 15 consecutive games to teams ranked in the top 25 and seven straight at home against ranked teams.
• In Bruce Weber’s nine seasons at the K-State head coach, the Wildcats are 90-10 when they hold the opponent under 60 points.

Prediction

On paper, Oklahoma should win this game. But the Sooners should have won a few of the times during their last nine trips to the Little Apple and head coach Lon Kruger’s alma mater. So this is far from a slam dunk, chalk up a win for Oklahoma, despite K-State’s season struggles and the Sooners playing as well as anyone in the country right now.

Kansas State will try to slow down the Oklahoma offense and force the Sooners to take contested shots and earn their points. The problem in defending the Sooner offense is that OU likes to spread the scoring around, featuring multiple offensive weapons. And the Sooners are very good at creating offense from their defense. Oklahoma is the much better team, and the better team generally wins. The Sooners snap another lengthy road losing skid. Oklahoma wins by a dozen.