Oklahoma hasn’t defeated Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse since 1993.
When it was announced that both Brady Manek and Jalen Hill would be unavailable for Saturday’s game in Lawrence due to COVID-19 protocol, many assumed it would stay that way. But the Sooners were determined to defy the odds.
Behind superb effort on both ends of the floor without a key starter and a key bench player, Oklahoma battled to the bitter end but came up just short in a hard-fought 63-59 loss to the No. 6 Jayhawks on Saturday.
“It was a hard battle,” head coach Lon Kruger said. “From start to finish, both teams played their tails off. Proud of our guys, but very very disappointed they couldn’t end up with the satisfaction of a winning feeling.”
The story of the game was the Sooners’ supreme defensive intensity that created lots of transition buckets and disallowed Kansas from getting an offensive rhythm. Oklahoma kept the Jayhawks over 15 points below their season average to this point.
“That’s been an emphasis in practice,” Austin Reaves said. “That’s something we’ve really been working on.”
The heightened defensive play was an absolute necessity given the hole created by not having Manek and Hill available for the game. Elijah Harkless was inserted into Manek’s spot in the starting lineup, turning in a five-point and five-rebound performance over 38 minutes of action. He was part of the overall group effort to fill the void left by those missing guys.
“I thought EJ (Harkless) stepped in there and did a fantastic job,” Kruger said. “They handled it well, they didn’t hang their heads, they didn’t pout about it. They understood the lineup and to go battle, and I thought they did that.”
Austin Reaves led the way for the Sooners, leading the team in points with 20, rebounds with nine and assists with three. He was also extremely active defensively and rarely wasn’t on the floor, playing 39 minutes to lead all players.
“It was just a next man up mentality,” Reaves said. “In sports you got to have that. If not this year, with COVID, some other times it’s injuries or stuff like that, so I mean you just always got to have that next man up mentality and just figure it out honestly. Play to people’s strengths and do what you can do to help get wins.”
It was certainly a valiant effort on the road against a top-10 team while missing key pieces for Oklahoma on Saturday. Losses are never something a team wants, but this was about as good of a loss as you can get given the opponent and the circumstances.
But, the standings don’t care about context. The Sooners are now 6-4 on the season and 2-3 in conference play, although, the schedule now does start to lighten up as much as the Big 12 slate allows.
After having played four straight ranked opponents, they now have three straight games against unranked teams with two of those being at home. In a conference with a very unforgiving schedule, winning home games against the bottom of the conference is an absolute must.
They will now get a couple of days off before returning to action on Tuesday night at the Lloyd Noble Center against TCU.
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