It’s only 13 games into the season, but a pattern has been emerging for Oklahoma basketball. Get down early and see if you can work yourself back.
Not an ideal situation, but the Sooners continue to make it work, especially at Lloyd Noble Center. OU rallied from an 11-point second half deficit to take down visiting Kansas State 66-61 on Saturday afternoon in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
OU trailed 61-54 with 3:45 left before ending the game on a 12-0 run to improve to 10-3 this season. Struggling offensively for most of the game, Austin Reaves decided it was time to make his statement.
Reaves scored 18 of his 21 points in the second half, and his 3-pointer with 1:39 left gave OU its first lead in the second half.
OU is undefeated at home this season but has only led at halftime once. This time around, it was a 33-30 deficit that ballooned to 44-33 for KSU before OU started to mount its comeback.
“You can turn around, if it's a 10-point game, you can turn around a game in three possessions,” Reaves said. “You can hit three straight threes. So with the talent we have, we feel we're in any game. If it's 15 with 10 minutes to go, we feel we're in it. We're going to keep grinding and keep playing every possession like coach said like it's our last. And if something good happens, then that's what happens.”
While Reaves carried the day down the stretch, it was senior Kristian Doolittle who kept the team afloat during the early rough patches.
Doolittle, back after missing Monday’s game for a violation of team rules, had 19 points and 12 rebounds. Reaves and Doolittle were the only two OU players in double figures.
With Reaves starting to find his rhythm offensively, it was up to OU’s defense to put the game away. After KSU scored to make it 61-54 with 3:45 left, KSU finished the game 0-for-5 from the field and two turnovers.
A key component to that was switching to a zone defense down the stretch.
“I thought our guys responded very well to that,” head coach Lon Kruger said. “They got some deflections out of that. I thought Sneed getting his fourth foul didn't hurt us any at all. He had it going at that time. I thought our activity in the zone was really good. We didn't rebound really great out of it for three possessions, but otherwise we got some deflections and did a good job with it.”
Brady Manek added nine points and nine rebounds. OU heads to Austin to take on Texas in the first installment of the hardwood edition of the Red River Showdown on Wednesday evening.
Notes
*It wasn’t a great shooting or scoring day for Jamal Bieniemy or De’Vion Harmon, but their on-ball defense was crucial to helping the Sooners during their second half run.
“It was outstanding. The deflections were there,” Kruger said. “In each of them, Jamal especially, he’s going to start making shots. But he’s not letting not making shots affect the rest of his game. That speaks to his maturity. He’s just a sophomore, understands the game and doing everything else well.
“De’Vion gave us a great lift, activity-wise, in a physical way defensively against the ball in the second half. I thought the guys did a better job of getting through some ball screens. We’ll learn and benefit from that.”
The two combined for three steals.
*A lot of talk went into the newcomers realizing what Big 12 play is all about. After the physical contest against the Wildcats, message sent.
“Coach has been preaching mainly to the people that have never played in a Big 12 game before,” Doolittle said. “Mainly just telling them how physical it was going to be. Our practices leading up to this game were very physical, a lot of contact. You can only simulate so much in practice, so I feel like the new people are handling it very well. They came out ready to play.”
*OU has had nine players average around 10 minutes per game this season, but Victor Iwuakor did not play Saturday. Kruger confirmed Iwuakor was healthy and that it was just a coach’s decision.
