Stillwater, Okla. — Despite playing significant stretches of Tuesday’s road game at Oklahoma State with starters Jalen Wilson, Dajuan Harris Jr. and KJ Adams on the bench, the 5th-ranked Kansas basketball team found a way to win.
And it was a merry-go-round of contributions from several different Jayhawks that led to the 87-76 victory at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
“I think we showed some toughness, some grit, playing out of foul trouble, playing with guys nicked up and having makeshift lineups out there,” KU coach Bill Self said after the game. “I thought we played well. Oklahoma State’s got a terrific team.”
Freshman guard Gradey Dick finished with a career-high 26 points (10-of-17 shooting, 4-of-9 from 3-point range) to lead the Jayhawks. He scored 10 of those in the first four minutes of the second half as the Jayhawks built a double-digit lead.
After the victory, Dick said his mindset in the second half was the same as it always is and that consistency remains the biggest thing he strives for night in and night out.
Jalen Wilson, the team and conference’s leading scorer, offered slightly more praise of the freshman who lit the Cowboys up to give Kansas the separation it needed.
“He did great. He did great,” Wilson said. “You guys have seen all year that he has no conscience when it comes to shooting the ball and that’s what makes a great shooter. Every time he shoots the ball we think it’s going in just like he thinks it’s going in.”
Wilson also noted that Dick’s defense, in a grind-it-out kind of game, was worth mentioning.
“He had a great game on both ends,” Wilson added.
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PHOTO GALLERY: Kansas basketball at Oklahoma State
Box score: Kansas 87, Oklahoma State 76
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Senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. (15 points, eight assists and three rebounds in 36 minutes) then did his part to take the game over, first scoring on a tough drive to the rim when Kansas needed it most and then hitting a jumper to put the Jayhawks up 62-53. After the 18-foot shot went through, McCullar calmly flashed a “bucket’s good” sign to the Kansas bench.
On the very next possession, he stepped in front of a cross-court pass by the Cowboys and then raced up the floor and floated a soft lob to Zuby Ejiofor, who laid it in to put Kansas up 64-53 at the under-12 media timeout.
“Gradey was the best player in the game for us and Kevin was, without question, the second-best player,” Self said after the victory. “He made two huge plays when those guys were out of the game and he did a great job defensively. But the big thing was eight assists and no turnovers, against a team that can really guard. The second half, I thought our guys guarded better, we made a couple of adjustments that may have helped us a little bit and Gradey and Kevin just put us on their back.”
That allowed Wilson (14 points in just 27 minutes) to check back in, and he scored instantly to keep KU (21-5 overall, 9-4 Big 12) in front by double digits as the game moved into the final 10 minutes.
Even KU reserve Joe Yesufu played a big role in this one. After exploding for 14 points in a win over Texas and pretty much disappearing at OU last weekend, Yesufu found Tuesday’s game more befitting of his style. He finished with just eight points in 16 minutes but played a key reserve role as the rest of KU’s starting lineup played musical chairs throughout much of the game.
“In games like that, when you have foul trouble, you’re not asking (a starter’s replacement) to go out and score six or eight, just make a play or two,” Self said. “And we had some guys make a play or two. At that moment it was so important because it allowed us to keep the lead.”
Although Dick hit plenty of big shots in this one — including a 3-pointer off of an assist from Ejiofor, who was surrounded by three OSU players in the paint and did all he could just to get it to Dick — one of his biggest moments came with 2:30 to play on a shot he missed.
After catching the ball on the wing, the OSU defender knocked the ball from Dick’s hands on the way up. With the shot clock winding down, he chased it down near the sideline and launched a shot toward the basket that hit the rim as the shot clock buzzer sounded. It was play-on from there, and Adams’ hustle play between two Cowboys saved the possession for the Jayhawks. As the teams went to the bench for the final media timeout, Self pumped both of his fists into the air.
KU did not score after the timeout, but McCullar’s block of an OSU shot in close kept the Jayhawks up by seven with less than two minutes to play. After the play, McCullar fell to the ground, favoring his left ankle. He did not finish the game but said afterwards that he would be fine.
“It’s just a little sprain,” McCullar said of his injured right ankle. “I was just running back, I think I stepped on (Kalib) Boone’s foot. I didn’t see him coming. I think I’ll be good, though.”
Asked specifically if he was worried about being available for Saturday’s game with Baylor at Allen Fieldhouse, McCullar said: “Oh no, I’m playing for sure. I’ll be out there.”
The final dagger from Kansas came on the possession that followed, when Wilson rebounded a 3-point miss by Yesufu and scored the basket with the foul to put Kansas back up by 10 with 1:48 to play.
“That was great,” Self said. “I’m not going to make excuses for him at all. He’s getting frustrated too much about not getting to the free throw line and he’s got to get rid of that. But he responded there at the end.”
Oklahoma State (16-10, 7-6) opened the game the way nearly everyone would have expected — by tossing the ball inside to big man Kalib Boone in the post.
After misfiring on his first two shots in the paint, Boone hit his next two. That opened things up on the outside, as well, and Bryce Thompson drilled his second and third shots of the game after missing a 3-pointer near the KU bench on his first shot of the game.
That merely allowed the Cowboys to keep pace with Kansas, which jumped out to a 5-0 lead on a dunk by Adams and a 3-pointer by Wilson.
KU went up 12-9 at the 15:32 mark of the first half on an and-one dunk by McCullar, who became the fourth KU player to score in the game’s first 4:38.
Harris’ basket on a nice back-cut at the 12:52 mark of the first half got all five starters on the board and gave the Jayhawks a 16-15 lead.
Oklahoma State took control from there, leading by as many as five points on several occasions in the first half. But Kansas never let the Cowboys stretch the lead beyond that in the first half and the Jayhawks actually led by two at halftime, thanks to a corner 3-pointer by Dick that beat the first-half buzzer.
“That play was really a big play,” Self said. “I thought they outplayed us the first half and somehow we’re up.”
KU closed the first half on a 14-7 run after trailing 30-25 with 6:33 to play. That included 3-pointers from Dick andYesufu in the final 41 seconds.
More importantly, Kansas managed to get to halftime without seeing Adams, Wilson or Ernest Udeh Jr. pick up their third fouls. By the 16:11 mark of the second half, however, all three players had their third foul, bringing even more strategy into the way KU managed the rest of the game.
The heady play late in the first half gave KU a lift heading into the second half, and KU’s defense during the final 10 minutes of the first half turned the game in KU’s favor. Kansas forced nine Oklahoma State turnovers in the first half, six coming via steals, to help negate the 30 combined points by Bryce Thompson and Kalib Boone.
That duo hit 11 of 19 first-half shots and seven of eight free throw attempts to pace the Oklahoma State offense. Thompson had just three points in the second half and Wilson said he was proud of the Jayhawks’ ability to cool him down.
“A guy that’s that confident, the second half we really just keyed in on not letting him feel comfortable at all,” Wilson said. “Make sure all his shots are contested, not let him be able to get to the rhythm dribble pull-up and just try to force him to drive a little more. When we started doing that, you saw it was night and day from the first half to the second half.”
Boone finished with a game-high 27 points to go along with nine rebounds.
“We said, ‘Hey, make him score,'” said Self of the Kansas gameplan to keep OSU’s outside shooters from going wild. “And he did. Make him score and stay connected to the shooters. Even though they ended up shooting the ball well from 3 (8-of-17), I actually think we guarded the arc pretty well.”
The Jayhawks started to double team Boone on the catch during the final few minutes of the first half, which led to a couple of OSU turnovers and held Oklahoma State to just five points in the final 4:35 of the half.
Tuesday’s win by Kansas sets up a massive showdown with No. 9 Baylor on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse. Both teams are tied with Texas for first place in the Big 12 Conference, with five games to play, and ESPN’s College GameDay is coming to Lawrence for the fun.
Asked what it meant to move into first place with back-to-back road wins, Self said simply, “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he added. “It doesn’t matter if it’s OU, OSU, whatever. … We’re happy where we are. … You can’t put so much emphasis on winning the league, in my opinion. You put emphasis on, ‘Let’s just be the best we can be when it counts the most and keep grinding.'”
Added sophomore forward KJ Adams of Tuesday’s victory: “It’s definitely a big win. We needed this one. We’re getting closer and closer every day. I think if you can play your best basketball around this time, coming to March I think we’re going to have a good chance. We’re just getting better and better.”
Saturday’s tipoff with Baylor is set for 3 p.m. on ESPN.
AP Photo/Mitch Alcala
