Sooners leave fate in committee’s hands
KANSAS CITY, MO. — With about five minutes left in Wednesday night’s Big 12 Tournament opener, Oklahoma was getting whipped on the boards by 18.
Christian James, Oklahoma’s second-leading scorer, having missed all four of the shots he’d fired up.
Kameron McGusty, the Sooners’ offensive spark of late, had struggled from the field as well.
But somehow, miraculously in a lot of ways, Oklahoma was still in the game. From there, things cratered, much like the Sooners’ season.
The Cowboys ran away down the stretch, beating Oklahoma 71-60 and putting the Sooners’ postseason fate in peril.
“A lot of praying,” James said when asked about what his next four days would be like. “Let the chips fall where they may. We put ourselves in the hole the whole season. We dropped a lot of games that we shouldn’t have dropped — another one here today that I feel like we shouldn’t have dropped.”
Sooners’ star Trae Young called it “the biggest rollercoaster season of college basketball.”
Oklahoma’s limp extended into the postseason as they dropped their eighth in the last 10 games.
Oklahoma’s problems magnified down the stretch — the Cowboys outrebounded the Sooners 10-2 in the final six minutes, which included four offensive rebounds.
“Clearly rebounding is about competing and fighting, and yeah, we’re not pleased with the job there at all,” Sooners coach Lon Kruger said.
Young at least briefly regained the spark that made him the clear best player in college basketball until this recent swoon.
Two quick Young 3-pointers within 45 seconds of each other helped get the Sooners back in the game about six minutes into the second half, and then two more 3-pointers from McGusty and Brady Manek that were assisted by Young cut the lead 10 points in a five-minute span.
But Young had just one more assist — on the next basket that cut the Cowboys’ lead for four — and missed his last five shots.
The Sooners must now wait on the selection committee’s decision. Many bracketologists had Oklahoma safely in thanks to a stellar nonconference mark with plenty of Quadrant 1 wins.
But there is no certainty.
Kruger declined to lobby for his team, though did point out those marks that point to the Sooners getting in.
“It’s irrelevant, you know,” Kruger said when asked if he felt like his team would be in the tournament. “We didn’t take care of our business here, so we don’t have any say in that at this point. But again, when you look at the nonconference schedule and the