The No. 7 Oklahoma Sooners were back at the Lloyd Noble Center for the first time in three weeks on Saturday as they welcomed in Bedlam rival Oklahoma State to Norman. The game will likely be remembered for some time as a classic in this rivalry, but with the Sooners on the losing end of things 94-90 in an overtime thriller.
“Heck of a ballgame, I thought,” head coach Lon Kruger said after the game. “Big time battle for 45 minutes, I guess. I thought guys on both teams competed like crazy, worked hard. We just couldn’t quite get it back over the hump. Again, it was a good battle. It was what games like that are supposed to be.”
The story of the game will easily be looked at as the historic outing of Cowboys’ freshman Cade Cunningham who exploded for 40 points and was absolutely dominant down the stretch and in the overtime period of his first Bedlam game. The future NBA lottery pick was unstoppable late and was an obvious huge piece to the road upset for Oklahoma State.
“He was terrific, obviously with a stat line like that.” Kruger said of Cunningham. “I thought our guys made him work for them (the 40 points). To his credit, I thought he made some big time shots, made some tough shots. Good players are capable of doing that, and he did.”
Oklahoma attempted to match Cunningham’s offensive heroics with the reliable duo of Austin Reaves and De’Vion Harmon who both turned in solid performances of their own on Saturday afternoon. Harmon was especially good, scoring an efficient 23 points on 9 of 13 shooting.
“I thought he was terrific, I thought he did a really good job,” Kruger said of Harmon. “He made shots, he got downhill, defensively he was good. De’Vion has had a lot of good ballgames for us and I thought he had a very good one tonight.”
“I just want to win,” Harmon said postgame. “And we didn’t do that. Yeah, I played a really good game but we didn’t win. And W’s are all that matter.”
The unique aspect, of course, of this year’s Bedlam series is the fact that these two teams will get the opportunity to run it back against each other just over 48 hours from now in Stillwater after that game was postponed back from earlier in the season. This gives the Sooners a great chance to wipe away this tough loss quickly and get things back on track.
“Of course we love it,” Harmon said about getting the chance to play the Cowboys again just two days later. “I know I love it. I’m a big time competitor, I want to compete. I know my teammates love it. Like I said, we’re going to be ready.
We just got to find a way to win, that’s all that matters.”
It is still likely too early to declare this is as a late season tailspin for the Sooners, but it certainly has to be somewhat concerning to drop two consecutive games as a favorite. The team will have two more big games in the coming week to try and get things back on track heading into the Big 12 Tournament.
Quite arguably now the biggest game of Oklahoma’s season to date, Bedlam round two is set for Monday night in Stillwater at 8:00 p.m. CT.
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