The Big 12 race has been nothing less than dramatic this season and, for No. 3 Oklahoma, it just became a lot more difficult.
The Sooners dropped a tough one in Norman Saturday, falling to No. 6 Kansas 76-72. OU came into the game tied at the top of the conference standings with the Jayhawks and West Virginia, but with the loss, the Sooners now sit in third place alone.
The importance of the game itself was only outdone by what a victory would have meant to the upstart Sooners — a chance for revenge from Lawrence and to show that they were ready to finally take the Big 12's reins from the Jayhawks.
Kansas, which has a shot at a 12th straight Big 12 championship was having none of that in front of a capacity crowd of 12,247 people in the Lloyd Noble Center.
Now, with just six conference games remaining, OU's chances of a Big 12 crown are starting to slip away.
“Well, you don’t like to lose anywhere, but certainly, you need to protect your home court, so we have to find one somewhere else now as a result of this,” OU coach Lon Kruger said. “When you lose at home in this league, it’s tough to get back.”
There’s a chance that OU’s inability to protect home court Saturday will continue to haunt them moving forward. Not only are the Sooners now a full game back from the Jayhawks and Mountaineers, but they also are at risk of losing their first-round bye in the Big 12 tournament.
To make matters worse, OU still has to travel to Morgantown and Austin in the next two weeks. Lose either of those games and OU is likely out of the race for good. The Sooners aren’t out of it yet, but now it is clear that this goal will have to be earned on the road.
Not every member of the team hung their heads after the game, though.
"I just feel like we just slow so we just learn from it and we can get better from it,” senior guard Isaiah Cousins said. “With all that's happening with this team, we got the key plays and we got good chemistries so I feel like this is a learning experience.”
With the experience that OU has developed in the nation’s toughest conference, a bounce-back run is certainly a possibility — a run that will have to start next Wednesday in Lubbock.
In the back of their minds, though, the Sooners will know that the road could have been made a lot smoother.
“It makes our climb uphill a little more so but we got to regroup and figure out how to play better, line up and get one the next time out,” Kruger said.
