Dwight Coleby, middle, and Devonte’ Graham (4) celebrate a 3-point basket late in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Baylor in Lawrence, Kan., Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016. Fortunately for college basketball fans, but unfortunately for the Sooners, Khadeem Lattin (a 52% free-throw shooter) missed a potential game-winning free throw (there were three seconds left). “If we’d have lost the game, I would have walked into the locker room and said, ‘You’ll never forget this one'”. So even though Oklahoma is one of the nation’s top teams and will be around deep into March, it’s still the Jayhawks’ conference to rock and chalk. And tied again at the end of a second overtime, at which point it became only the second No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown in college basketball history to ever reach three OTs.
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This is the first time any conference has had the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in any poll since KU was No. 1 and Texas No. 2 in the coaches poll in 2010-11. Hield was the driving force behind Oklahoma’s success, and he firmly cemented himself in to the National Player of the Year conversation. Mason, too, had four fouls throughout the three overtimes, but convinced Self to let him stay on Hield, who drilled eight 3-pointers and hit 13 of 15 free throws.
Ryan Spangler grabbed a game-high 18 rebounds and scored 14 points. But he’s played as well as anybody this season… and better than any individual player in the game of the season, so far. But Isaiah Cousins struggled with his shot, and the Sooners’ bench only contributed five points. Forward Leyton Hammonds hit 11 points and forward Jeffrey Carroll scored 10.
In a scintillating game worthy of the pregame hype, top-ranked Kansas edged second-ranked Oklahoma 109-106 in triple overtime. But here’s a look at the ones that won the game in the third OT.
The Big 12 ratcheted up its already lofty profile.
Jordan Woodard hit six 3-pointers and had 27 points for the Sooners, who were trying to extend their best start in 28 years. Although Oklahoma is a better team in nearly every aspect over 2014-15, the Sooners still revolve around their star in Hield. The Jayhawks, snakebit in four previous tries in a 1-versus-2 game, not only broke the streak and kept hold of their top spot in the polls with them, they got an early jump in the Big 12 race. He’s shooting an incredible 50 percent from the 3-point line. While Kansas’ win over OU can be that, we don’t know that just yet. Mark your calendars for the rematch between Kansas and Oklahoma on February 13 in Norman.
Oklahoma survived a rare poor shooting effort from reigning national player of the week Buddy Hield and saw its vaunted defense allow No. 14 Iowa State to shoot 51.5 percent from the floor, but still found a way to pull out an 87-83 home win Saturday over the Cyclones.
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Virginia Tech 70, Virginia 68: Zach LeDay scored 18 of his 22 points in the second half and blocked London Perrantes’ attempt to tie the score in the final seconds as the host Hokies (10-5, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) beat the No. 4 Cavaliers (12-2, 1-1).
