Tag: Iowa State Basketball

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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After nearly a week without game action, Oklahoma returned to action on Wednesday night in the first round of the 2021 Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City against Iowa State. It was the third meeting of the year between the Sooners and the Cyclones, with Lon Kruger’s group taking each of the first two in mostly competitive games.

Oklahoma entered the matchup on a four-game losing streak and needing a win as bad as any non-bubble team in the country, and they delivered the performance they were desperate for. Nearly every aspect of the game was much better than what we have seen in recent weeks as the Sooners got back in the win column 79-73.

De’Vion Harmon and Austin Reaves were the two leading scorers as per usual putting up 18 and 21 points in the opening round victory. As a whole, it was really a solid all-around team win.

The win gets Oklahoma up to the 15-win mark at 15-9 and gets them a date with Kansas tomorrow in the quarterfinals. Here are three immediate takeaways from the game:

Balanced Attack

When Oklahoma was at their best this season, it was when they were moving the ball around and getting lots of guys involved. Obviously Austin Reaves is your go-to guy with De’Vion Harmon right behind him, but spreading the love and showcasing their depth is how the Sooners toppled so many good teams earlier this season.

On Wednesday night, they did that really well having eight different guys score – all of which got involved in the first half. None of those guys even scored more than seven points, as it was an overall group effort to get them a halftime advantage.

That mostly continued throughout the rest of the game although Harmon and Reaves did assume their place as the leading scorers by game’s end. As a whole though, the offense was mostly balanced out very nicely.

For the Sooners to keep winning in Kansas City this week and to try and win some NCAA Tournament games next week, this needs to be much closer to what they do offensively. The last few weeks the offense has felt so Reaves-reliant that the ball movement has really suffered. While he is certainly their best player and a fantastic one, it isn’t the best recipe for winning. It needs to be more than just him.