Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoKansas City, Mo. ? In a storybook world of lollipops and sugar-plum fairies, the two schools clashing for the NCAA men’s basketball championship April 4 would be Kansas and Oklahoma State.
What a memorable Monday night it would be if the Jayhawks and Cowboys — clearly two of the best teams in the country — played their rubber match with the biggest nets of all ripe for scissoring.
In the wake of Saturday’s stirring 78-75 O-State victory in the semifinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament and that pulsating 81-79 Kansas victory a couple of weeks ago in Allen Fieldhouse, how could you not want to see those two teams meet again?
“Those two games we had with Kansas … I’ve coached a long time,” OSU boss Eddie Sutton said, “and those have been two of the best.”
KU coach Bill Self wholeheartedly agreed.
“It was a fabulous game,” Self said. “It was one of the best games of the year, and not far behind the game of a few weeks ago.”
If the Feb. 27 meeting in Lawrence was a classic — and I don’t know anybody who believes it wasn’t — then Saturday’s rematch was a mini-classic. That first meeting featured a full 40 minutes of crisp, intense action, but the Cowboys’ poor early shooting — they missed 15 of their first 20 shots — placed Saturday’s meeting a cut below.
Still, the last 15 minutes were as good as college basketball can be.
“The thing we have when we play Kansas,” Sutton said, “is there’s a lot of respect. There’s no trash-talking. That’s the way the game used to be played, and the way it ought to be played.”
Will Kansas and Oklahoma State collide again this season?
That’s up to the NCAA men’s basketball committee currently sequestered in a downtown Indianapolis hotel crunching numbers, checking S curves, noting conference tie-ins and picking names out of a hat.
I’m kidding. The NCAA committee does not pick names out of a hat in order to fill its 65-team bracket. It flips coins. But seriously, folks, the committee will face a quandary in assigning the best teams — a priority the last few years — to first- and-second round sites close to their campuses.
In the Big 12 Conference area, that site is the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. In order to prevent conference teams from meeting until at least the round of eight — another mantra that provokes dilemmas wrapped in paradoxes — it is highly unlikely the Big 12’s three best teams will be sent to the Red Clay Country.
One of the three is a lock. Oklahoma State earned that right Saturday. If the ‘Pokes are not assigned to Oklahoma City, then the wind that comes whipping down the plains tonight will be OSU fans screaming injustice.
“Somebody told me that Oklahoma State fans bought over half the tickets to the Ford Center,” Sutton noted Saturday, “but I don’t know if that’s true.”
If it is true, then Oklahoma fans probably bought the other half, and, if they did, KU fans might want to point their Web browsers to e-Bay tonight looking for disgruntled OU fans anxious to unload their tickets.
Since Oklahoma and Kansas both lost in Saturday’s semifinals, OU fans may be holding out hope the Sooners will be sent to Oklahoma City based on the fact Oklahoma defeated Kansas during the regular season and, in so doing, earned the No. 1 seed in the conference tourney.
Self tossed those OU fans a bone Saturday when he said both Oklahoma State and Kansas “should both be sent” to Okie City, then added: “But it may not play out that way. They may put Oklahoma there.”
Self could be correct. Anything is possible. But I think Oklahoma is the odd team out and probably will be sent to Indianapolis based on its schedule. OU’s overall slate wasn’t soft. It’s just that Kansas played the toughest schedule in the country, according to the latest RPI rankings.
So Kansas would win the tiebreaker with OU, pure and simple, on the RPI factor.
No one knows, either, if the committee would take into consideration that Kansas lost to Oklahoma State with its second-leading scorer in street clothes. As much data as the committee has at its disposal, you have to suspect they knew about Keith Langford’s absence, but who knows if the committee even would consider it?
At least Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State had a platinum lining. The Jayhawks will have an extra day of rest before the NCAA Tournament begins, and Langford will be back in uniform. In fact, Self said Langford would have played today if KU had advanced to the title game.
The last piece of good news should come tonight when the Jayhawks learn they will be a No. 2 seed and designated for a pod in Oklahoma City.
Multimedia:
Hear Bill, Joe, players: Oklahoma State postgame comments
Photo Gallery: KU vs. Oklahoma State
Get the stats: KU vs. Oklahoma State box score
Scorecard: Grade KU’s performance against Oklahoma State
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