University of Oklahoma Athletics
Saturday, February 20
Ames, Iowa
5:00 PM
University of Oklahoma
at
Iowa State
Photo by: Ty Russell
OU Visits Iowa State Saturday
February 18, 2021 | Men's Basketball
9/10 Oklahoma
Iowa State
Saturday, Feb. 20 / 5 p.m. CT / Hilton Coliseum / Ames, Iowa
NORMAN – Winners of seven of its last eight games, No. 9/10 Oklahoma (13-5, 8-4) takes one of the hottest streaks into the country to a pair of venues that have been thorns in the Sooners' side over the past decade. In a four-day stretch, Oklahoma will play road games inside both Hilton Coliseum and Bramlage Coliseum, two arenas that OU has gone a combined 1-17 inside of since the 2011-12 season.
First up for the Sooners is a Saturday matchup with Iowa State (2-15, 0-12), a team that took OU to the wire by making 16 3-pointers in the first matchup two weeks ago.
An Oklahoma victory would be its first inside of Hilton since 2011 and keep the Sooners in second place in the Big 12. A win would also give Oklahoma's its most victories (seven) in an eight-game conference stretch since the 2014-15 season.
ON THE AIR
• The Big 12 matchup tips at 5 p.m. CT and will air on the Sooner Sports Radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Tune In Radio App) with Toby Rowland and Kevin Henry announcing.• Mark Neely and Tim Welsh have the call on ESPN2.
THREE POINTERS
• Senior guard Austin Reaves will be playing just his third game in the past 26 days on Saturday. Reaves sat out of two games due to COVID-19 protocols (contact tracing) and OU has had two games postponed since his return. The rested Reaves has made the most of those two outings, totaling 44 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists. He was named Big 12 Player of the Week on Monday after his late game heroics and 28-point performance helped the Sooners best West Virginia in double overtime last Saturday. Reaves came close to a triple-double in his first matchup with the Cyclones earlier this month, producing 16 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Reaves is the only Division I player averaging at least 16.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists.• Junior guard Umoja Gibson has one of the hottest hands in college basketball, sinking 15-of-29 3-pointers over his last four games while averaging 15.8 points during that stretch. He enters Saturday's game with four straight games of at least three treys and is coming off a 19-point performance at West Virginia where he went 5-of-10 from deep. Oklahoma is 10-2 this season when Gibson makes at least two 3-pointers.
• Senior forward Brady Manek has returned to the starting lineup, playing at the five position as OU continues to find success with its four-guard approach. In his two games on the block, the 6-foot-9 Manek has totaled 20 points, 24 rebounds, six assists and four 3-pointers.
SERIES HISTORY: IOWA STATE
• OU leads the overall series against Iowa State, 118-91 and has won the last two meetings.• The Sooners are looking to reverse a losing trend against Iowa State, with the Cyclones winning six of the last nine meetings.
• Iowa State leads the series for games played in Ames, 54-37. The Sooners have lost nine straight road games at Hilton Coliseum, with their last win in the building coming in 2011.
• The Sooners are on the hunt for their first season sweep of the Cyclones since 1995 (the teams only played once a year from 1997-2011).
LOOKING BACK AT OU'S WIN OVER WEST VIRGINIA
• Oklahoma completed the season sweep of West Virginia in dramatic fashion, taking the Mountaineers to double overtime before leaving Morgantown with a 1-point win.• Senior guard Austin Reaves won the game on offense with the go-ahead bucket with 26 seconds to play. The Sooners then got multiple stops to seal the win, highlighted by a blocked shot at the rim by Kur Kuath with seven seconds left.
• Reaves tallied a near-triple-double of 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. He shot 50% from the field and went 7-for-7 at the foul line. The senior was instrumental late in the game, scoring 22 points after halftime.
• With his stat line, Reaves became just the third player in Big 12 history to produce a game of 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, joining Trae Young (2018) and Oklahoma State's Maurice Baker (2001). He is the only major-conference player with a 28-9-7 game over the last two seasons.
• Junior guard Umoja Gibson continued his hot streak by sinking five 3-pointers and scoring 19 points. The transfer scored 16 points after halftime and sunk four 3-pointers during that stretch. He came in clutch with the game on the line, tying the game with 21 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime.
• Senior forward Brady Manek had another strong effort in the five position, producing 11 points and nine rebounds. Junior guard Elijah Harkless also pulled down nine boards to go with 12 points.
QUICK HITS
• Oklahoma has five wins over top-15 teams this season, tied with Ohio State for the most in the country.• Oklahoma also leads the country in wins over ranked opponents (also five), tied for the most with Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Ohio State.
• The Sooners are in the middle of playing three straight road games, their first such stretch in league play since 1996.
• Oklahoma has won seven of its last eight games. The only loss in that stretch came on the road to Texas Tech without leading scorer Austin Reaves and starting guard Alondes Williams, who were both absent due to COVID protocols.
• OU is 6-2 in Big 12 games this season when all its rotation players are available to play. The Sooners last lost at full strength on Jan. 6 to No. 2 Baylor in Waco.
• The second-place Sooners were picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 Preseason Poll and did not make an appearance in the AP Top-25 until Jan. 25.
• The Sooners are in the top-12 of the AP-Top 25 for the third straight week, checking in at the No. 9 position. Oklahoma jumped into the top-10 for the first time this season on Feb. 1 after being ranked No. 24 the previous week. The 15-spot increase is tied for the largest single-week jump by an already ranked team since the poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989 (Arizona jumped from 19 to 4 in 1995-96).
• On Feb. 13, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee announced its top 16 teams in a mock bracket selection, pegging Oklahoma as a No. 3 seed. Should the Sooners continue to hold ground in the committee's mind, Oklahoma could become just the eighth team in the last 25 years to earn a top-4 seed after being unranked in the AP Top-25 until at least Jan. 25. The highest seed obtained in the last 25 years by a team that was unranked through at least Jan. 25 was a No. 2 spot by South Carolina (1997) and Iowa State (2000).
• One of the main factors to OU's historic rise in the polls is from a stretch in late January where the Sooners beat three top-10 teams in eight days. By defeating No. 9 Kansas, No. 5 Texas and No. 9 Alabama, Oklahoma became just the third team in NCAA history to beat top-10 teams in back-to-back games, joining Michigan (2014) and Iowa (1987).
• In the month of January, Oklahoma became the first college basketball team since 1974 to beat four top-10 teams in one calendar month.
• The Sooners are 9-0 when scoring at least 78 points. OU is averaging 81.5 points per game in victories and 63.2 in losses.
• Sometimes the key to victory is as simple as making shots. Over the last two seasons, the Sooners are 26-1 when they have a better field goal percentage than their opponents. Their only loss when owning a better field goal percentage was on the road at then-No. 1 Baylor last season.
• Oklahoma is committing only 10.8 turnovers per game - the fewest in the Big 12 and 18th best in Division I.
• The Sooners also lead the league in fewest fouls committed per game, fouling an average of 14.5 times - the 10th-fewest in the country. This continues a trend that Oklahoma showed a lot of discipline in last season, committing only 14.4 personal fouls per game in 2019-20 – the third fewest in the country. This year, OU opponents are shooting an average of 13.6 foul shots per game, compared to OU's 17.9 free throw attempts.
• OU is making the most of its trips to the line, ranking second in the Big 12 in free throw percentage with a 74.9% rate.
UP NEXT: KANSAS STATE
• Oklahoma plays its third straight road game on Tuesday when the Sooners head to Manhattan to face Kansas State on to-be-determined ESPN network. Oklahoma is in search of its first win at Bramlage Coliseum since 2012.• OU leads the overall series against Kansas State 110-102 and won the first meeting of the season 76-50.
• OU head coach Lon Kruger played for Kansas State from 1970-74 and was named the Big Eight Player of the Year in 1973 and 1974. He also starred on the baseball diamond for Kansas State and was selected in both the NBA and MLB Drafts in 1974. He later coached the Wildcats from 1986-90, racking up an 81-46 (.638) record. Each of his K-State squads qualified for the NCAA Tournament, and the 1988 team was one of the best in the school's history with 24 wins and a trip to the Elite Eight. Kruger's No. 12 hangs in the rafters of Bramlage Coliseum.
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