Oklahoma basketball: Sooners stumble yet again at K-State

The rise to riches that is Oklahoma basketball this season found an old nemesis up to the task in Kansas State on Tuesday night.

The Sooners (14-6, 9-5), who just 36 hours prior to their third consecutive road game in a little over a week’s time had been elevated to the No. 7 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25, were ripe for an upset at a place — Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kansas — where Oklahoma had not won in eight years.

By now, most every OU basketball fan knows that Kansas State defied the odds, the team records and all those naysayers who didn’t give them much of a chance against the No. 7 team in the country, upsetting the Sooners 62-57.

It was the ninth straight time K-State has defeated Oklahoma and head coach Lon Kruger, who both played and coached at Kansas State and is one of the most decorated players in the school’s history. Oklahoma has not won at Kansas State since 2012, Kruger’s first season in Norman.

This was a game the Sooners could have won, and for a few short minutes late in the contest it appeared that they would, but you just had that feeling deep in your gut that they were destined not to do so. And that fear quickly became reality over the final three minutes.

Now the Sooners must regroup and quickly get this game behind them. This weekend Oklahoma has the first of two games in 48 hours against in-state rival Oklahoma State. The two teams play at OU on Saturday at 2 p.m. On Monday night, the scene shifts to Stillwater, the second game of the ESPN “Big Monday” doubleheader.

Here is a quick summary and some notable numbers from the K-State disappointment:

• Austin Reaves scored 18 of his game-high 25 points in the second half. He sat out the final 7:50 of the first half after picking up two quick fouls, the second of which was a technical foul for arguing the initial foul call.
• The Sooners led 18-13 when Reaves left the game in the opening half. With Reaves out of the game, Kansas State outscored OU 16-11 to tie the game, 29-29, at the intermission.
• Over a six-minute stretch in the second half, Reaves scored 14 of Oklahoma’s 16 points, taking the Sooners from three points down to six points ahead with just under four minutes to play.
• With Oklahoma leading 53-47 with 3:57 remaining in the game, Kansas State senior guard Mike McGuirl hit three-pointers on K-State’s next three trips down to floor while the Wildcat defense held the Sooners scoreless. That proved to be the turning point in the game, taking K-State from six down to ahead 56-53 in a span of 90 seconds.
• De’Vion Harmon, with 13 points, was the only other OU player in double figures.
• Brady Manek, who earlier in the season averaged over 16 points a game, was just one for seven from the field and none of five from three-point range, ending with 2 points.
• Oklahoma was held to under 60 points for just the third time this season. The 57-point total was their second-lowest scoring game of the season (they scored 52 in a 59-52 loss at Texas Tech on Feb. 1).
• The loss at Kansas State dropped the Sooners from second in the Big 12 standings to fourth, behind Baylor, West Virginia and Kansas.
• Depending on what happens over the final two weeks of the regular season, Oklahoma could finish anywhere from second to sixth in the Big 12 standings, which could become a big deal when determining seeds for the conference tournament.