OU’s Buddy Hield makes final case for Player of Year

By Matt Tait     Mar 7, 2015

Mike Yoder
Oklahoma guard Buddy Hield (24) and the Oklahoma Sooner celebrate after he scored late in the Jayhawks' 75-73 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners Saturday, March 7, 2105 in Norman.

? If Oklahoma junior Buddy Hield felt he needed to make one more statement to help his candidacy for Big 12 Player of the Year, he picked a heck of a way to do it.

Hield, the conference’s leading scorer (17.4 ppg) and Oklahoma’s best player, made the biggest play of the last game of the regular season to beat the team that won the conference for the 11th consecutive year.

With Saturday’s game at Lloyd Noble Center tied and five seconds remaining, Hield charged the rim to tip in a miss for the game-winner in a wild, 75-73 victory by the 15th-ranked Sooners over No. 9 Kansas.

OKLAHOMA 75, KANSAS 73

Box score

Hield’s bucket, which gave him a team-high 18 points on just 6-of-20 shooting, set off a wild celebration in which he and teammates hopped onto tables, dog-piled near mid-court and celebrated with fans in all corners of the arena. The only thing that put a wrench in the explosive celebration was the fact that officials put two-tenths of a second back on the clock after reviewing the bucket.

KU (24-7 overall, 13-5 Big 12) never got a shot off after the reset, but Hield had other concerns during the review.

“Oh yeah, I was worried,” he said. “I was like please don’t call it off. I was out there celebrating and all of that stuff and didn’t want to be on (ESPN’s) ‘Not Top Ten.’ I was just saying, ‘Please, Lord, help me.'”

Hield’s prayers were answered and the Sooners (21-9, 12-6) wrapped up their signature win of the season.

“That was beautiful,” OU junior Isaiah Cousins said of Hield’s highlight. “I was excited for Buddy and the team. We really needed to beat Kansas. It just feels good to beat the championship team. Now we know what we can do, and we should be pretty dangerous down the road.”

Added OU coach Lon Kruger: “It’s great to go up against a club like Kansas and it will be beneficial.”

Of course, the Sooners could not escape the fact that had they not blown a 20-point lead last Monday at Iowa State, Saturday’s victory over Kansas would have delivered a Big 12 title to Norman.

“You can always do that, sure,” said Kruger of those what-if moments. “But we’re not going to spend any time on that because it’s not worth anything. It works out the way it’s supposed to. This group has done a great job. They won eight of the last 10 (games) and made a great push. We almost got there but didn’t quite.”


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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.