Had Oklahoma State’s Adarius Bowman scored four touchdowns Wednesday, the Cowboys might have a had a chance.
OSU’s two-sport standout – who torched Kansas University’s football team for 300 receiving yards and four scores in a magnificent October game – played just five minutes in KU’s 87-57 basketball pasting of the Cowboys on Wednesday.
Considering Bowman’s previous luck in Lawrence – and the OSU basketball team’s horrible showing at Allen Fieldhouse – perhaps the junior should have done some post routes up and down the court to give the Cowboys some sort of a chance.
Because what Oklahoma State brought Wednesday led to what coach Sean Sutton called “a good, old-
fashioned butt kicking right there.”
“This has always been a great rivalry through the years, a game that players have always looked forward to playing and fans always enjoyed coming to watch,” Sutton said. “I thought we set the series back tonight.”
By the time the Cowboys got their act together, it was way too late. Kansas jumped to a 23-point first-half lead, then let it dwindle to 13 before exploding and winning by 30.
The Allen Fieldhouse crowd was at its best, and it was obvious the Cowboys players noticed.
“They have a great sixth man here,” guard JamesOn Curry said, “and we didn’t respond to adversity as well as we should have.”
This wasn’t Dartmouth or Winston-Salem State, either. Oklahoma State (15-2 overall, 1-1 Big 12) had a top-10 ranking and legitimate hopes of winning the Big 12 Conference.
Believe it or not, the Cowboys had a game plan, too. It was to force turnovers, get points in transition and feed forward Mario Boggan, OSU’s top scorer.
“We’re at our best when scoring in transition and not having to line up and play their great man-to-man defense,” Sutton said.
So, how did it work? Well : it didn’t.
OSU had an 18-0 deficit in fast-break points and a 23-8 hole in points off turnovers, while Boggan had a season-low eight points on 4-of-16 shooting.
Yikes.
“I thought they did a great job on frustrating him with their size,” Sutton said of Boggan. “I didn’t see that coming. I thought he’d be fine against their post players.”
A 30-point blowout usually can’t be pinned on one or two areas or one or two players, though. And a look at the stat sheet shows a game-wide domination by the Jayhawks (14-2, 1-0).
“They just go in and lay it up if they wanted to, if they wanted to flip it up for a dunk they did that,” Sutton said. “We had no resistance to letting them do what they wanted to do.”
Sutton, Oklahoma State’s first-year coach, admitted he saw this sort of potential in the Jayhawks, the preseason favorite to win the conference.
He just didn’t want the Jayhawks showing it against his team.
“They’re a legitimate candidate to win the national championship,” Sutton said. “They have got everything it takes. They’ve got great players, an outstanding coach, tremendous speed and quickness on the perimeter. They guard your pants off on the defensive end. Offensively, they’ve got a lot of weapons that can score the ball.
“If they can hold up against a bigger, physical, grind-it-out team, who would win on that stage? Speed and quickness versus a power team? I like them a lot.
“They’re still one of the best three or four teams in college basketball,” Sutton added. “Tonight, they played like the best. But I wouldn’t say we gave them a great look either.”
