In response to a tough last week, Oklahoma basketball managed to defeat Kansas at home. This makes the Big 12 title picture just a bit more interesting.
Coming into the start of last week, there were four teams tied for first place in the Big 12 standings: Kansas, West Virginia, Texas Tech and Oklahoma basketball. It was looking like the year that the Jayhawks would finally fall as the regular season conference champions.
However, things have changed in a hurry, with everyone but Kansas losing two games since, leaving Bill Self’s team with a two-game lead midway through the schedule. And with the game in Norman coming up, Kansas had a great chance to effectively eliminate the Sooners from the picture and grab yet another road win.
But Oklahoma 15-4 (5-3) had other plans. Star freshman Trae Young, who received some criticism for last week’s poor shot selection and decision-making, picked up his game once more. He showed this immediately, switched things up and attempting only four shots in the first half.
But Kansas 16-4 (6-2) was always around and took the lead late in the second half after some made shots by Svi Mykhailiuk, who finished with a team-high 24 points. That’s when Young went into overdrive and really started to look for his shot. He scored 18 of his game-high 26 points in the final 20 minutes, all while doing it on 7/9 shooting (10-12 FT).
He only had three second-half assists, but they came at the best time, with a pair of nifty passes to Christian James and Brady Manek for the go-ahead lead with a minute to go. Unfortunately for Kansas, the team’s star player Devonte’ Graham had a miserable game, going 4/19 from the field and missing in the final moments, allowing the Sooners to ice it from the free throw line for the win.
Anyone who is not a Jayhawk fan is celebrating this result, as Kansas is now just one game ahead of four other teams, including a surging Kansas State ball club. An opposite result would’ve put Oklahoma down three games with a return trip to Lawrence still to go.
For Young, in particular, this was a great bounce-back effort from the games before, showing arguably the most poise he’s had all season long in the biggest game of the season.
Next: Where is Oklahoma in our latest Bracketology?
All teams in the Big 12 will be taking part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge, an event they’ve yet to lose since the series rebooted five years ago. But next week resumes league play, which thanks to tonight’s result, just got more intriguing in terms of the title race.