Oklahoma Basketball: Historic Free Throw Shooting Performance Lifts Sooners off Bubble

Oklahoma has little margin for error in a crowded bubble picture, so the Sooners went perfect from the free throw line on Saturday to give themselves some breathing room.

Lon Kruger’s team tied an NCAA-record at the stripe, knocking down all 34 free throw attempts during its weekend win over bubble neighbor Iowa State. OU are just the third team in NCAA history, joining Samford (1990) and UC-Irvine (1981), to sink 34 free throws in a game without missing one.

Romero Osby and Andrew Fitzgerald were the biggest enablers of the feat. Osby, a 79-percent free throw shooter entering Saturday’s action, canned all ten of his attempts while Fitzgerald, a 63-percent shooter who has fallen out of favor in Norman, buried all eight of his.

The Sooners, which came into the game a 72.8-percent free throw shooting team, now lead the Big 12 in the category at 74.4-percent following their record performance. OU is shooting 78-percent from the line in-conference, the second highest intra-league mark for a high-major school.

After a crushing loss to River Red rival Texas — compounded by a squandered 22-point lead and a premature taunt —  the Sooners are back in the field of 68 for now, with a pair of forgivable games remaining on the docket (home vs. West Virginia and at TCU). Provided the team takes care of business over the next week and avoids a swift sendoff in the Big 12 tournament, Oklahoma is on track to go dancing for the first time since Blake Griffin patrolled the paint.

Saturday’s win was especially important because it came at the expense of a fellow conference bubble contender. Oklahoma’s blind resume is visibly better than Iowa State’s (see for yourself), and in the event that the Selection Committee can only take one of the two middling Big 12 schools, the Sooners are the odds-on favorite to get the nod.

All thanks to a spotless performance at the line, of course. For the Sooners on Saturday night, those 34 attempts really were “free” after all.