Oklahoma basketball: Sooners need another strong defensive effort at K-State

A long Oklahoma basketball season, filled with lots of highs but also a disproportionate number of lows, is nearing an end.

The regular-season finale will unfold on Saturday when the Sooners face Kansas State at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kansas. K-State’s home court has not been a welcoming environment for the Sooners over the past decade.

At quick glance, you wouldn’t think there would be much at stake in a game between two teams with 6-11 conference records and tied for eighth place in the Big 12 standings. But that is not the case as both the Sooners and the Wildcats are still holding out hope of earning an at-large berth in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

The winner of Saturday’s game also earns a No. 6 seed in the Big 12 Tournament and a coveted bye in next Wednesday’s opening-round game. So there is plenty on the line for both teams.

Oklahoma is riding a two-game winning streak and coming off a 72-59 victory and regular-season sweep of West Virginia on Tuesday. K-State came close to accomplishing the same against No. 12 Texas Tech earlier this week but couldn’t hold off the Red Raiders in the closing two minutes and fell 73-68 in Lubbock. The Wildcats won the earlier game against Texas Tech in Manhattan.

Oklahoma won the earlier game with K-State this season, the Big 12 season-opener for both teams, 71-69 in Norman, with Elijah Harkless scoring 21 points and hitting the game-winning shot with 38 seconds remaining. Unfortunately for the Sooners, Harkless suffered a season-ending injury in mid-February and won’t be available on Saturday.

The Sooners lead the all-time series with Kansas State, but only by a narrow 111-103 margin. But OU is only 36-64 in games played in the Little Apple and hasn’t won there in the last nine visits dating back to 2012.

Ironically, the Sooners last win at Kansas State was in Lon Kruger’s first season as the Oklahoma head coach. Kruger, of course, played for and served as head coach of the Wildcats for four seasons in the late 1980s.

Oklahoma’s difficulty finding wins at K-State is rivaled only by the Sooners’ losing ways at the other Sunflower State school, Kansas, where OU has not won since 1993, a span of 20 games.

The OU-Kansas State game is scheduled to tip off at 3 p.m. CT Saturday and will be available on ESPN+. Chucki Kempf and Missy Heidrick will be on the call.

What fans need to know about Oklahoma vs. Kansas State

• Only West Virginia has a worse field-goal percentage than Kansas State (41.8), but the Wildcats rank third in the Big 12 in three-point field-goal percentage (34.5) and lead the league in made three-pointers per game (8.4).
• Three Kansas State starting guards average double figures in scoring, led by Nijel Pack, the Big 12’s fourth leading scorer at 17.7 points per game. Pack is also the conference’s best three-point shooter, averaging 43.7 percent from long range. Markquis Nowell averages 12.6 points per game and Missouri transfer Mark Smith averages 12.2.
• KSU’s Nowell leads the Big 12 in steals, averaging 2.2 per game.
• K-State not only shoots the three-ball well, the Cats defend it well, too. K-State ranks 19th nationally in three-point, field-goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 29.4 percent.
• Three Oklahoma starters average in double figures in scoring: Tanner Groves (12.3 per game), Umoja Gibson (11.8) and Jordan Goldwire (10.4).
• Tanner Groves has had a double-double (double figures in points and rebounds) in each of his last two games.
• The Sooners are second in the Big 12 in free-throw percentage (74.8).
• Oklahoma has held its last two opponents (Oklahoma State and West Virginia) under 40-percent shooting.

Prediction

As much as I want to pick Oklahoma to win on Saturday at Kansas State and turn the Bramlage Coliseum curse on its ear — because a Sooner win would enable them to avoid a play-in game in next week’s Big 12 Tournament and, even more important, keep alive their narrow but real possibility of making the NCAA Tournament — the Sooners have shaken my confidence one too many times this season in these situations.

K-State has lost four consecutive games, but three of those losses were by a total of nine points. Add to that, the Wildcats are playing well, and they play even better at home, where they will be on Saturday and where the “Octagon of Doom” has been just that for the Sooners in their last nine trips to Manhattan.

Oklahoma could really use the injured Elijah Harkless in this one. The odds, stakes and history are all working against OU in this one. Kansas State prevails by 8+