Have you ever seen those black-and-white pictures hanging in the concourses of every college basketball arena in America? You know, the ones commemorating teams who won championships in 1921 in leagues that don’t exist anymore, consisting of skinny dudes who never touched a weight room in their lives, played decades before the invention of the protein shake, and very well may have played with a peach basket? It’s quite possible those people traveled in time to Wednesday night and invaded Gallagher-Iba Arena.
Kansas and Oklahoma State played a thriller on Wednesday. Double-overtime. A game-winner by Naadir Tharpe in the final seconds. A wild final sequence ending in a player throwing himself on the floor and the Jayhawks scooping the ball up for a dunk that counted only symbolically. It was everything you could ask for as a college basketball fan in terms of drama and late-game heroics, and yet it still might have been one of the most frustratingly and poorly played contests since the Great Depression. These are supposed to be two of the top three teams in the Big 12 Conference, but neither looked the part tonight.
That’s not to say the victory wasn’t monumental for Kansas. Surprise, surprise — the Jayhawks recovered from a midseason swoon and exacted revenge on Oklahoma State by toughing out a road victory in one of the most intense atmospheres they’ll see all season. That’s what Bill Self does (in addition to his dancing skills, apparently). Gutsiness aside, though, this game was not very aesthetically pleasing. For brevity’s sake, let’s start our examples with the end of regulation. Moments after he’d tied the game with a three-pointer, Marcus Smart had plenty of time to create for himself or his teammates. Instead, the clock wound down, the Jayhawks were draped all over the screen and he threw up a poor final shot. Overtime started, and Kansas didn’t make a field goal for five minutes. Then, the next overtime started, and it still didn’t make a field goal until Tharpe’s game-winner. With Smart fouled out, the Cowboys’ next attempt at a game-winner fell on the shoulders of Markel Brown. He threw a brick off the rim after taking a wildly contested jumper. Of course, nobody in blue bothered to block out Phil Forte, who then swarmed to the ball and nearly saved the game. Lucky for them, the Jayhawks got the bounce. And they got the win.
But they did it by shooting 1-of-11 from three-point land. Tharpe redeemed himself with the game-winner, but he shot 2-of-11 and became the center of criticism on Twitter for his head-scratching shot selection. Jeff Withey was an animal, but Ben McLemore struggled throughout the duration of the game and disappeared in the second overtime. It’s a good thing Oklahoma State played even more poorly. The numbers are staggering: 19 percent from three and 32 percent from the floor overall. The Cowboys missed 10 free throws, too. Oh, and those final possessions of regulation and second overtime weren’t pretty. Consider this a wasted opportunity for Travis Ford’s squad, whose Big 12 title hopes took a giant hit with this narrow loss.
The words you just read did not paint a very pretty picture. That’s because it wasn’t a pretty game. But in the end, Kansas overcame its point guard problems and defended well enough to give itself a chance to win. Laugh at Tharpe all you want, but true character is judged by how you react to adversity and play under pressure. He grew as a player on Wednesday, and that’s why the Jayhawks are once again in prime position to lock up a regular season title with only two weeks remaining in the schedule.