Oklahoma State pounds Kansas 82-64, sweeps season series with Jayhawks

Bill Self figured his Kansas basketball players would give maximum effort in Saturday’s regular-season finale at Oklahoma State.

Oh, was he wrong about that.

“It’s sad to me when somebody already kicks your (butt) once … it seems to me like that’s plenty of motivation,” Self said after his Big 12 champion Jayhawks (24-7, 13-5) were blown out by the sixth-place Cowboys 82-64 in front of a crowd of 12,482 at Gallagher-Iba Arena.

“I thought we’d compete harder considering they kicked us good at our place. That was not the case,” Self added, noting, “once it went bad it started going worse.”

The Jayhawks, who trailed 17-7 after 7 minutes and were down 46-30 at halftime, were basically run out of the gym by an Oklahoma State team (18-13, 8-10) that defeated KU 84-79 on Feb. 3 at Allen Fieldhouse.

The Cowboys became the first Big 12 team to upend KU twice in the same regular season in the 15-season Self era. KU entered having won 102 straight regular-season conference home-and homes. Iowa State was the last team to sweep KU, back in 2000-01.

“How can I say this? We win the league by two games and they are a lot better than us,” Self said of the Cowboys, who tied for sixth in the conference with Oklahoma, Baylor and Texas.

Oklahoma State will play Oklahoma in the Big 12 tournament at 6 p.m.Wednesday at the Sprint Center, with the winner meeting KU in a quarterfinal contest about 2 p.m.Thursday at the Sprint Center.

“The two times we played them, it hasn’t even been close in my opinion,” Self added. “To ask if they are an NCAA Tournament team, my answer would be an emphatic, ‘yes.’ They deserve to be in it (NCAAs) more than we do, in just the two games that we played them.”

The Cowboys spoiled KU’s 120 Years of Basketball Celebration weekend in early February. The Jayhawks did not come close to returning the favor on the Cowboys' Senior Day.

In fact, all four Oklahoma State seniors scored in double figures. Kendall Smith scored 25 points, Mitchell Solomon had 16, Tavarius Shine added 11 and Jeffrey Carroll scored 10. They celebrated after the game, the students storming the court in anticipation of a possible NCAA berth.

“They are a lot more athletic than us,” Self, coach of the country’s sixth-ranked team, said of the unranked Cowboys. “Their perimeter guys are more athletic than us. Their big guy (Solomon, who had seven rebounds, two blocks and helped hold Udoka Azubuike to eight points and seven boards with four turnovers and four fouls in 20 minutes) is such an anchor and played great today.

"We probably match up against them poorly — as much as anybody in our league. We helped them by not playing any tougher than we did.”

KU did cut the 16-point halftime deficit to nine at 56-47 on a bucket by freshman Silvio De Sousa (seven points, three rebounds) with 11:55 left, but Oklahoma State upped the margin to 12 points with 9 minutes left and never looked back.

It was reminiscent of Oklahoma State’s 86-67 win over KU on Jan. 19, 2016, in Stillwater. In fact, this was the Jayhawks' worst loss since thatgame.

“I’ve been coming back here enough and getting my butt handed to me enough here I probably don’t feel it like I did when I first started coming back,” Self said, when asked about his emotions returning to his alma mater, where KU has lost three of the last four years.

“I think our message (leaving Oklahoma State), at least right now without studying tape or anything, is that our margin for error is so small," Self added. “When it is so small, you are actually proud of your team’s accomplishments. You’ve also got to understand … when your guards don’t come to play (Svi Mykhailiuk had five points on 2-of-7 shooting, Malik Newman had seven points on 3-of-7 shooting and Lagerald Vick added eight points on 3-of-9 shooting) … we are not athletic like a lot of teams. We can be athletic when we are turned up.

“Just one or two guys being off … when you are only playing five the vast majority of the minutes, it’s just not enough. I think the message has to be, ‘Better now (to lose) than later.’ Certainly this could easily happen again if we are not 100 percent turned up and in tune."

Self said the Jayhawks — who had a five-game winning streak snapped Saturday — have to bring intensity every game because, “we don’t put fear in anybody. We used to play people and there was doubt before they played us whether or not they could play with us. There’s not that doubt this year.”

KU senior leader Graham credited Oklahoma State with total domination.

“Give them credit. They played well today, shooting the ball (50 percent overall, including 10 of 24 threes; KU hit 41.7 percent of its shots, including 7 of 20 threes),” Graham said. “Obviously they wanted to have their seniors go out the right way. They did a good job of doing that.

“I feel from the jump they had our number. It felt like it was their day. They did a good job coming out and setting tempo.”

KU suffered 17 turnovers to Oklahoma State’s 10.

“They started out really good and kept it going,” Mykhailiuk said. “We didn’t play very tough today. We turned the ball over a lot at the beginning of the game.

“When we turned it over it was easy basket, easy basket,” added Mykhailiuk who had four turnovers to no assists. Graham led the way with eight assists to three turnovers in 39 minutes.

Self, by the way, was called for a technical foul, leaving the coaches’ box after loudly complaining when Mykhailiuk was called for an offensive foul with 5:55 left.

“I deserved the technical. That was fine,” Self said, not saying anything else about the play.

Percentages: FG .410, FT .636. Three-Point Goals: 7-20, .350 (Graham 3-7, Garrett 1-2, Mykhailiuk 1-2, Newman 1-3, Vick 1-5, Lightfoot 0-1). Team Rebounds: 4. Team Turnovers: 17 (11 PTS). Blocked Shots: 1 (Vick). Turnovers: 17 (Azubuike 4, Mykhailiuk 4, Graham 3, Newman 3, Vick 2, Garrett). Steals: 5 (Graham 2, Mykhailiuk 2, Vick). Technical Fouls: coach Bill Self, 5:56 second. Fouled Out: None.

Percentages: FG .500, FT .783. Three-Point Goals: 10-24, .417 (Smith 4-6, Carroll 2-7, McGriff 1-1, Solomon 1-1, Dziagwa 1-2, Waters 1-2, Averette 0-1, Shine 0-4). Team Rebounds: 3. Team Turnovers: 9 (19 PTS). Blocked Shots: 8 (McGriff 3, Sima 2, Solomon 2, Shine). Turnovers: 9 (Smith 3, Averette, Carroll, McGriff, Shine, Sima, Solomon). Steals: 11 (Smith 4, Shine 2, Solomon 2, Averette, Carroll, Sima). Technical Fouls: None. Fouled Out: None.

Half: Oklahoma State 46-30. Att: 12,482.

This story was originally published March 3, 2018 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Oklahoma State pounds Kansas 82-64, sweeps season series with Jayhawks."