KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A few minutes after he was beaten for the second time this season, Baylor beat himself.
“I do not want to say it that way, but we needed the loss in some way,” senior Mark Vital said after an 83-74 loss to Oklahoma State in a semifinal round of the Big 12 tournament that from now until Sunday must echo through the bracket. noon. ‘Everyone says it, but we do [need it]. We came here with the attitude that we were already the champions of the Big 12. We need to change our mindset to get hungry. ‘
Can you feel it? The outlook at national level is changing everywhere from what you did this season to what you can do do. The NCAA Tournament begins next week. Pretend does not have to apply.
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The second ranking (22-2) is still one of the teams with the chance to win everything. The loss will do nothing to affect their expected number 1 seed. The expert, Jerry Palm, of CBS’s sports bracket, kept Baylor on the No. 1 seed line and did not like their position as the national seed no. 2 moved to the loss. But the upset was not only the biggest of this week, but also one of the biggest of the season. The Bears are not playing badly, just not their best.
In Vital, Jared Butler and Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Davion Mitchell, they have one of the best trios in the country. But the state of Oklahoma has shown extraordinary depth and better effort. Backup guard Isaac Likekele was plus-15 within 37 minutes. Forward Kalib Boone was a plus-17 with six blocks and 10 points.
That’s before Cade Cunningham, the Big 12 player of the year, scored 25 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
“I do not know how to explain it. It’s just a different feeling this year,” Likekele said.
It’s definitely been a different feeling lately. The Cowboys won for the eighth time in nine games. (The only loss is against Baylor.) The last three wins were more than ten opponents. Saturday was the Pokes’ 10th victory in Quad 1. On the 85th birthday of legendary coach Eddie Sutton, they advanced to the Big 12 tournament for the first time since 2005. Sutton passed away last May.
Baylor, however, was the focus thereafter. The Bears started 18-0 before COVID-19 plagued the team and let the Bears stand still for three weeks in February. They lost to Kansas who came out of the halftime and are now 4-2 at the NCAA Tournament. Therefore, Vital was not finished yet.
“I want them to feel it. I went through it. I lost in the tournament,” he said. ‘I want my guys to feel that loss and that will be the lead in the next game.
“We are still one of the best teams in the country. We have leaked. We will rise again. Muhammad Ali did it a lot.”
Friday was a kind of piston punch. Baylor beat the Cowboys 11 of the last 12, back to 2016. The Bears won the two regular season games by a combined 26 points.
The state of Oklahoma (20-7) ran out at every opportunity and apparently surprised the Bears. Cunningham, the Big 12 player of the year, scored 11 of his 25 points in the last 5 minutes. Avery Anderson, the Cowboys’ third-point option, has dropped to 20, giving him 68 points in the last three games.
“I hope we can dispel the idea that we’re Cade and these bunch of dolls,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said.
It was Anderson’s fearless one – time drive to the basket that led to a 2:09 three-point game over which gave the Cowboys a one-point lead they would never give up.
“There’s never a good time to lose,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. ‘But it’s better to lose now than in the NCAA Tournament, so I would agree. We will have an extra day of rest.
“It’s like putting your hand on a stove and it burns you. For a while, you don’t put your hand back on the hot stove. If you get lost, you don’t like that feeling.”
The state of Oklahoma deserved it, something the champion opponent Texas cannot say. The Longhorns said goodbye to their first Big 12 tournament championship game since 2011, after Kansas was forced to abandon Friday’s second semifinal due to COVID-19 protocols.
KU joined Virginia and Duke by knocking their coronavirus out of their conference tournaments. Hope that hovers among the game’s stewards can push the NCAA tournament to its end without interruption next month.
“The whole season gave us a break,” Boynton said. “But you can only do so much. It’s not like the virus is just going to go away.
Five months after the nets were cut down, the Cowboys are closer than ever to … cutting down the nets. Boynton has a tradition of having his players grab a ladder and cut the hoop during each preseason.
“He told us, ‘This is what the goal is. It’s going to be a long road, a lot of ups and downs,” Cunningham said.
They took it at least at the end of the Big 12 season.
“I believe in the law of attraction. You have to see that you do it before you can implement it,” Boynton said. “I wanted to give a tone to this team about what we could do. We haven’t talked about it yet, but here we are.”