Another Big 12 Loss, Outscored 44-14 in the Paint, Explanations and Hopes Wearing Thin
STILLWATER – The postgame press conference had to feel disappointingly familiar to Mike Boynton. You seriously could have gone back to the game close to two weeks ago at Gallagher-Iba Arena where KU won 90-66 and just replayed the quotes. Boynton has had a chance to enjoy a postgame since then with the win last Saturday in the Remember the Ten game, but losing big, losing close, losing late, just losing is becoming hard, very hard to digest.
“Tough night for us and Kansas had a lot to do with that,” Boynton opened his postgame. “Knew from the way they played last game (KU lost to that we would get a pretty aggressive team. Knew we had to play well to give ourselves much of a chance. We’ll just get back to Stillwater and try to continue work to get better. I guess we’re getting close to halfway through conference play and we’re going to have to put some wins together if we’re going to get in the thick of this thing let alone try to get close to the top or the middle of the league.”
At 1-7 in the conference and 9-12 overall it is hard to think about being in the middle of the Big 12. Just escaping the bottom has to be the first order of business. Oklahoma State got a break on Tuesday night with leading scorer Kevin McCuller Jr. out of the line up with what KU head coach Bill Self called a knee bruise. He said it was pretty sore.
Kansas inserted Elmarko Jackson and the freshman had 10 points. Every Jayhawks starter had double figures with KJ Adams Jr, and Hunter Dickinson leading the way with 16 each. Kansas got 18 points from the bench and that is better than most nights.
In the end Kansas had the same number of made three-pointers as Oklahoma State taking 11 less shots to get the eight. Kansas shot 57.6 percent and outscored the Cowboys in the paint 44-14. That is becoming a bad trend for the Cowboys defense.
“They can beat you a lot of ways and we were going to try to make them beat us from three and they showed us they were capable beating us early from three,” Boynton explained of the defensive collapse. “It makes it harder then to put more attention on Hunter (Dickinson). If you have to single cover him, it makes it challenging. They are one of those teams that can beat you both ways if they are making shots. They did and then they kind of doubled us from there.”
On the ligher side the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line made their way to Allen Fieldhouse for a team building outing in preparation for Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers.
Mike Boynton and his team headed home with senior guard Bryce Thompson needing an MRI on his injured shoulder that Boynton said he was uncertain about the severity of the injury. The Cowboys will get Kansas State on Saturday at 1 p.m. Kansas State is on a losing streak and got beat at home 73-53 by Oklahoma, so the Wildcats will be in a bad mood when they hit Stillwater. The Cowboys need to be in a bad mood too.
“We get our next one at home and we play a really good team, but I have confidence in my staff and my team that we’ll work to put us in position to have a chance to play better,” Boynton added.
That is another line that he has had too much practice saying.