Oklahoma basketball: OU makes regular-season finale count, defeats KSU

Men’s Oklahoma basketball had not won at Kansas State in 10 years, but that changed on Saturday afternoon as the Sooners made it a season sweep of the Wildcats with a 78-71 victory.

Senior shooting guard Umoja Gibson was the hero of the day for OU, draining seven of 15 three-pointers and a game-high 29 points. Tanner Groves added 14 points, the only other Sooner in double figures.

Oklahoma jumped out to a quick 12-5 lead in the first five minutes of the first half and led for most of the opening 20 minutes. The Sooners held a one-point, 38-37, advantage going to the locker room at halftime.

The two teams battled back and forth over the first five minutes of the second half. A free throw by Tanner Groves put the Sooners ahead 48-47 at the 14:11 mark in the second half, and OU did not trail the remainder of the game.

Oklahoma had not won a regular-season series from Kansas State since 2012, Lon Kruger’s first season as the Sooners’ head coach. The irony of that, of course, was that Kruger, a two-time Big Eight Player of the Year, is a K-State alum who both played for and coached the Wildcats.

With the win, the Sooners (17-14, 7-11) finished out the regular season with three consecutive victories and earn a first-round bye in next week’s Big 12 Tournament as the No. 6 seed. Oklahoma thus avoids an opening-round play-in game with West Virginia. That honor now goes to Kansas State (14-16, 6-12) with the No. 7 seed.

Head coach Bruce Weber’s K-State team finishes out the regular season with five straight losses.

Here are some of the notable numbers that tell the story of OU’s huge road win at Kansas State:

2 — This is the second time this season Umoja Gibson has scored 29 or more points in a game.

9 — Lead changes in the game. There were also seven ties.

15 — Bench points scored by the Oklahoma reserves.

15 — Oklahoma dominated the boards with a rebounding margin of 14 (37 to 22). The 15-rebound margin was the largest by the Sooners since Nov. 12, 2021, when they outrebounded the University of Texas-San Antonio 52-32.

20 — Twenty of Mo Gibson’s 29 points were scored in the first half.

43 — Forty-three of Kansas State’s 71 points were scored by two players. Mark Smith led all scorers with 22 points. Mike McGuirl scored 21 in his final game at Bramlage Coliseum.

44 — Oklahoma’s three-point field-goal percentage against the Big 12’s best three-point field-goal percentage defense. Kansas State had been holding its opponents to 29.4 percent from long range.

52.8 — OU’s shooting percentage in the game, the second highest field-goal percentage in the Sooners last 15 games.