KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Minutes after being defeated for the second time this season, Baylor defeated himself.
“I don’t mean it that way, but in a way we needed that defeat,” said senior Mark Vital after an 83-74 loss to Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Tournament semifinal that is expected to echo through the key from now until Sunday afternoon. “Everyone says that, but we do [need it]. We came here with the mindset that we were already the champions of Big 12. We have to change our mindset back to stay hungry. ”
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The runner-up, Bears (22-2), remains one of the teams with a chance of winning. The loss will do nothing to impact your expected No. 1 seed. CBS Sports Bracketology specialist Jerry Palm kept Baylor in the No. 1 seed line and did not move them from their position as the second national seed after the defeat. But the turn was not just the biggest this week, but one of the biggest of the season. The Bears are not playing badly, they just are not at their best.
In Vital, Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell, the 12th defensive player of the year, they have one of the best trios in the country. But the state of Oklahoma showed unusual depth and better effort in the final stretch. Reserve guard Isaac Likekele was over-15 in 37 minutes. Striker Kalib Boone was a plus-17 with six blocks and 10 points.
That before mentioning the 25 points, eight rebounds and five assists of the player of the 12 biggest players of the year Cade Cunningham.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just a different feeling this year,” said Likekele.
It has certainly been a different feeling lately. The Cowboys won for the eighth time in nine games. (The only loss is to Baylor.) The last three wins were over the top 10 opponents. Saturday marked Pokes’ 10th victory at Quad 1. On the 85th birthday of legendary coach Eddie Sutton, they advanced to the Big 12 Tournament Championship game for the first time since 2005. Sutton passed away last May.
Baylor, however, was the focus afterwards. Bears started 18-0 before COVID-19 devastated the team and made the Bears pause for three weeks in February. They lost to Kansas after that break and are now 4-2 on the stretch towards the NCAA Tournament. That is why Vital has not been completed.
“I want them to feel. I’ve been there. I lost in the tournament,” he said. “I want my boys to feel that defeat, to have that advantage in the next game.
“We are still one of the best teams in the country. We gave it a beating. We will get up. Muhammad Ali did a lot of that.”
Friday was a kind of disgusting punch. Baylor had defeated the Cowboys in 11 of the last 12, going back to 2016. Bears had won both regular season games by 26 points combined.
Oklahoma State (20-7) came out and ran at every opportunity, seeming to surprise the Bears. Cunningham, the 12th biggest player of the year, scored 11 of his 25 points in the last 5 and a half minutes. Avery Anderson, the Cowboys’ third goal option, dropped by 20, giving him 68 points in the last three games.
“I hope we continue to dispel that notion that we are Cade and this bunch of puppets,” said Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton.
It was the fearless and Anderson drive to the basket that resulted in a three point play at 2:09 from the end that gave the Cowboys an advantage from a point that they would never give up.
“It’s never a good time to lose,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. “But it is better to lose now than at the NCAA Tournament, so I agree with that. We will have an extra day of rest.
“It’s like putting your hand on the stove and it burns you, for now you don’t put your hand back on that hot stove. When you have a loss, you don’t like that feeling.”
The state of Oklahoma deserved it, something that its championship opponent, Texas, cannot say. The Longhorns said goodbye to their first Big 12 Tournament game since 2011, after Kansas was forced to withdraw from Friday’s other semifinal because of the COVID-19 protocols.
KU joined Virginia and Duke to be eliminated from their conference tournaments by the coronavirus. Hope fluctuates among game administrators and could lead the NCAA Tournament to its conclusion next month, without interruption.
“The whole season has given us a break,” said Boynton. “But you can’t do anything. It’s not like the virus is just going to disappear.
Five months after cutting the nets, the Cowboys are closer than ever to … cutting the nets. Boynton has a tradition of making his players grab a ladder and attack the hoop during each preseason.
“He told us, ‘That is the goal. It will be a long road, with many ups and downs,” said Cunningham. “He said we should see how far we can go.”
They took it until the end of the big 12 season, at least.
“I believe in the law of attraction. You have to see yourself doing this before you put it into action,” said Boynton. “I wanted to set a tone with this team with what we are able to do. We haven’t talked about it since, but here we are.”