Kansas Basketball: Jayhawks avoid hat trick, win impressively

Very seldom does Kansas Basketball find themselves on the negative side of sweeps. Shorthanded, the Jayhawks defeated the Cowboys to move on.

Kansas Basketball received bad news on Wednesday. They found out that they would be without Udoka Azubuike for the conference tournament. One day before they faced an Oklahoma State team that had already beat the Jayhawks twice, in impressive fashion. The Cowboys were playing for their possible tourney lives, the Jayhawks were playing for the difference between a 1 seed and a 2 seed.

Oklahoma State has been one of the more impressive teams in the nation as of late. They made it to this game by defeating the coldest team in the nation, Oklahoma. The Jayhawks earned the bye with their 14th straight conference title.

If you bet on the Cowboys to win, it wasn’t a dumb bet. Not only did Mike Boynton’s Cowboys become the first Big 12 team to sweep Bill Self and the Jayhawks, they had a chance to do it for the hat trick. The Cowboys won by 18 point in their last meeting just five days ago.

First half

It was a back and forth first half. Oklahoma State looked to pull away on a couple of occasions but Kansas never let them stay too far ahead. Jeffrey Carroll started the game on fire with help from fellow senior Kendall Smith.

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The story of the first half for the Cowboys was the play of Yankuba Sima. By halftime he had a season high 11 points with no Udoka on the court for Kansas.

The Jayhawks managed Udoka’s absence well in the first half. Something special had to happen for the Jayhawks to win this game, and something special happened. Malik Newman happened. Newman scored 20 points on 8-10 shooting in the first half.

Kansas was able to manage a couple of possession lead before the Cowboys cut the Jayhawks lead to one at the half.

Second half

Lagerald Vick started the 2nd half quickly with a nice slam dunk. The Jayhawks buckled down on defense, playing much better defensively in the second half. Shots kept going down for the Jayhawks as it appeared two games in one day would be too much for the legs of Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys were forced into poor shot selection while Kansas found open shots. Silvio De Sousa stepped up big during the half, out-playing the entire Cowboys team to get to crucial rebounds. Kansas slowly worked itself into a 9-0 run.

The problem building for the Jayhawks was the foul trouble that Udoka’s replacements were getting into. With over 12 minutes remaining both De Sousa and Mitch Lightfoot had three fouls each.

Kansas’ defense was the story of the second half. The score managed to stay at 61-50 for over four minutes, while the offense became as sloppy as the Cowboys. Then Svi Mykhailiuk put his stamp on the game. A drive and lob up to Mitch Lightfoot for a monster jam followed by a killer three-point shot from his sweet spot on the court. The corner.

That three by Svi made the score 66-50 at the under eight time out.

The Cowboys made a push cutting the Jayhawks lead to 10, but the defense showed back up and Lagerald Vick placed his stamp on the game with a three pointer and a fast break dunk, back to back. The Jayhawks did not bend any further.

The Kansas Jayhawks move on to face the Kansas State Wildcats as they overcome great odds to finally defeat the first team to ever sweep them. The final score was 82-68.

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This game was a testament to not only the coaching of Bill Self but the heart and pride of the Jayhawks players. Devonte’ Graham, when asked who he wanted to play, either Oklahoma or Oklahoma State, he did not hesitate to bring up the Cowboys. This team wanted to play Oklahoma State and they wanted to beat Oklahoma State.

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