What a way to go.
“That’s a tough way to lose a great basketball game,” Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton said.
OSU guard Adrian Peterson was whistled for a foul with no time showing in overtime, and Ryan Robertson converted Peterson’s gaffe into a free throw that gave Kansas a pulsating 67-66 victory on Monday night.
Peterson, who led the Cowboys with 23 points, was stunned when he heard referee Scott Thornley’s whistle.
“I stepped away and (Robertson) leaned into me,” Peterson said. “He was 40 feet from the basket … but that’s the call (Thornley) made and people make mistakes.”
Sutton didn’t call the toot a mistake, but the O-State coach thought Thornley should have swallowed his whistle.
“That’s a no-call,” Sutton said. “Thorny called it, though, and he’s one of the best officials we have. I’d like Scott to call our games every night.”
Hats off, Sutton said, to the Kansas senior guard who was playing his last game in Allen Fieldhouse.
“No, you don’t want to foul in a situation like that,” Sutton said, “but Robertson made a clever play.”
Ironically, Peterson had seen the same thing happen to Cincinnati in a game against DePaul earlier this season.
“I was watching that game and I thought, `How sick can that dude be.’ He lost the game for them, and now it’s happened to me,” Peterson said.
Moments earlier, Peterson had suffered another sick feeling. He had leaped to rebound a missed Robertson shot with about 35 seconds remaining in the OT, and he accidentally flicked the ball into the Kansas basket.
KU’s Eric Chenowith was given credit for the basket — his 24th and 25th points.
“I don’t think he touched much of the ball,” Peterson said with a smile. “There was a little leprechaun on the rim or something and it went in.”
Perhaps it was a little leprechaun, too, who made OSU point guard Doug Gottlieb answer the bell with his trunks on backwards.
“Oh, man,” Gottlieb said with a sigh afterward. “It had to happen on ESPN with my folks watching. That’s never happened to me before.”
It didn’t take KU students sitting in the north end zone long to spot that the “OSU” was on the back of Gottlieb’s trunks and on the front of his teammates’ togs. They began chanting, “Shorts on backwards” and kept it up for several minutes.
“I couldn’t figure out what they were saying,” Gottlieb said. “Then Pete came over to me and said, `Hey, man, they’re on backwards.'”
after the tip he noticed Gottlieb’s teammates quickly gathered around him, and the junior point guard from Tustin, Calif., reversed his trunks.
When the timeout was over, Gottlieb went onto the floor and gave a little bow.
“There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun,” he said. “It was all in good fun. They weren’t mean-spirited fans like we’ve seen at some of the places we’ve been.”
Meanwhile, Sutton was bemoaning the fact OSU didn’t win in regulation. Desmond Mason’s 15-footer at the buzzer bounced off the rim, forcing the OT.
“You can’t get a better shot than Desmond had,” Sutton said. “You get the 15-footer, you hit the shot, be a hero and go home. But he didn’t hit it.”
Sutton also mentioned it hurt when Joe Adkins, who hit three three-pointers in the last three minutes of regulation, suffered a sprained ankle early in the OT.
Moreover, Sutton lamented the Cowboys’ inability to stop Chenowith.
“He’s really improved,” Sutton said. “He’s established himself as one of the bright young centers in college basketball.”