No. 25 Oklahoma closed the regular season in the midst of their toughest stretch of the entire year to this point. After being one of the surprise teams in the country all year long and climbing their ranking all the way up to No. 7, the Sooners plummeted down the rankings and Big 12 standings after four straight losses.
Needless to say, they really needed to get back in the win column before the NCAA Tournament begins next week. And that much-needed win came on Wednesday night against Iowa State in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.
“Really, really happy for the guys,” head coach Lon Kruger said postgame. “When you’ve dropped a few in a row that go right down to the wire, you got to get that feeling of winning again and happy for the guys. They did a good job to get it in the right column.”
The game unfolded somewhat similarly to the second meeting against the Cyclones, with a big second half lead suddenly shrinking down into a competitive game. After trailing by 18 points, Iowa State came battling back to work the lead all the way down to six with just over three minutes to play.
It was at this point that the man who often comes up big late for Oklahoma would step up yet again, with All-Big 12 guard Austin Reaves coming through with multiple key buckets to keep the Cyclones at bay and help keep his team in the lead.
“It was huge,” Kruger said of Reaves’ shots to keep the Sooners’ lead intact. “Huge plays at a time where we needed to kind of stem their run. He’s done that for us on many occasions and certainly he was great at that time tonight.”
Elijah Harkless was certainly huge again as he was the definition of a stat sheet stuffer in this game picking up 12 points, nine rebounds, six assists and five steals. He was everywhere on Wednesday night.
“All I can say about that is that’s big time,” De’Vion Harmon said of teammate’s stat line. “We feed off him on the defensive end. When he’s doing that, man, we’re a very hard team to beat.”
Harkless was a huge part of the Sooners defense having an uptick back to more like what it was earlier in the season when Oklahoma was racking top-15 wins seemingly every other day. Getting out in transition for easy scores is a must for them to be at their best, and they did that much more often against Iowa State than they had in the losing skid.
Also big in helping the defense jump back up in production was Kur Kuath off the bench. He was a constant disruption in the painted area picking up three blocks along the way. He was one of the more unsung heroes of the win for the Sooners.
“Kur’s done great, that’s back-to-back games where he’s had a big impact,” Kruger said. “Around the rim especially. He’s doing a good job, doing what he’s best at doing and that’s great for everyone. Everyone gets a little security from him at the rim. He does a good job of not only blocking shots but changing some others.”
Now the challenge of the conference tournament setting starts to take place as Oklahoma will have to turn around and play Kansas tomorrow roughly just 19 hours after this game ended. This is really the only time of the year where teams are asked to play in consecutive days, which provides a unique obstacle that only this week provides.
“It’s like AAU all over again,” Harmon said. “Usually you got two games in one day. But we got one game. Give it everything you got, get some rest, and move on to the next one and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The Sooners will take on the Jayhawks for the third time this season tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. CT in Kansas City.
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