It wasn’t pretty, but Kansas State Wildcats beat Oklahoma for second Big 12 victory
At this point in the season, no one associated with the Kansas State basketball team is going to complain about winning a game in ugly fashion.
That’s a good thing, too, because the Wildcats’ 61-53 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners was as ugly as it gets.
K-State didn’t shoot the ball particularly well or overwhelm Oklahoma on defense Wednesday at Bramlage Coliseum, yet the final score made it seem like the Wildcats did both.
“It was a little closer than it should have been, but it’s still a good win and we felt good about how we played,” K-State coach Bruce Weber said. “This time we basically led the whole game. I can’t believe we did it. We did a good job from the get-go.”
The Wildcats made 37% of their shots and allowed the Sooners to attempt a plethora of good looks throughout the game, but they led comfortably for all but a few minutes. The main reason why: Oklahoma made just four of 21 shots from three-point range and lost 19 turnovers.
“We shut them down,” Weber said.
Give K-State credit for playing solid enough defense to frustrate Oklahoma into having an off night, but this is not the type of victory Weber will brag about to his coaching friends.
Still, none of the home fans were frowning at the end of this one. The Wildcats (9-11, 2-5 Big 12) picked up their second conference victory and will head into a daunting stretch of games against No. 12 West Virginia and No. 1 Baylor with a jolt of much-needed confidence.
Oklahoma (13-7, 3-4) did what it always seems to do in Manhattan under the guidance of Lon Kruger. The former K-State player and coach has lost eight consecutive games in this building, with his teams consistently playing some of their worst basketball regardless of the circumstances surrounding the game.
The Sooners were a narrow favorite on Wednesday, but they trailed the entire way with K-State jumping out to an 8-2 lead.
“It felt great to be out there with my brothers,” K-State guard Mike McGuirl said after leading all scorers with 16 points. “I just tried to do my part and do my best to help the team win and we were able to win tonight, which we very much needed.”
Things did get interesting in the late moments, when the Sooners took advantage of a string of missed free throws from K-State to pull within four.
McGuirl led all scorers by draining a trio of three-pointers when his team needed him to do so. He hit an important outside shot midway through the second half that gave the Wildcats a 40-25 advantage. That felt like a deflating moment for Oklahoma.
Xavier Sneed added 12 points for the Wildcats and Cartier Diarra added 10.
Alondes Williams led Oklahoma with 15 points.
“I thought we did a great job of moving the basketball side to side and talked about that,” Weber said. “Getting in the paint, shot faking when they flew at shots but now get it to the next guy.”
K-State got off to an encouraging start and seemed in control of the game when they took a 25-12 lead with 6:13 remaining in the first half. The Wildcats played exceptional defense in the early going, holding the Sooners to 31.6% shooting in the first half while also forcing 10 turnovers.
Oklahoma is normally an efficient team on offense, but K-State made life difficult for Kristian Doolittle, Austin Reaves and Brady Manek.
Still, by missing 12 of their final 13 shots, the Wildcats let the Sooners back into the game. Oklahoma closed the first half on a 10-3 run to make the score 28-22.
K-State has struggled to maintain leads all season, so there were some nervous fans heading into the second half. But the Wildcats found a way to get an important victory, even if it wasn’t pretty.
“We talked about rebounding and not giving them second-chance opportunities,” Weber said. “Then we talked about taking what the defense gives us, because they switch and do all that scheming. Our guys did a good job of reading stuff, and we were able to get enough easy ones and get a nice victory.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 9:16 PM.