The Kansas Jayhawks got beaten up on their home floor on Saturday and will look to rebound with a road trip to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners.
Road teams don’t often find success at Allen Fieldhouse, but last Saturday was an exception. Kansas, which has one of the best home-court advantages in college basketball, got pushed all over the floor by Baylor in a 67-55 defeat.
That loss was the first time that the Bears have ever scored a win in Lawrence, and they did it by holding an explosive Kansas offense to just 55 points. The Jayhawks were uncharacteristically poor from three-point land, knocking down only 26.7 percent of their triple tries, while Devon Dotson scored only nine points on 4-10 shooting.
That performance appears to be an aberration for Kansas, which has been one of the country’s best teams for most of the season. Dotson, who leads Kansas in scoring with 18 points per game, and Udoka Azubuike give the Jayhawks a 1-2 punch that few teams in the sport can match.
Kansas will look to rebound from this loss as they hit the road to take on Oklahoma. Over the course of the year, the Sooners have been solid if not spectacular, beating the teams they were supposed to and losing to teams that aren’t resume killers.
Oklahoma is also coming off a loss, and this defeat was arguably its worst of the season as the Sooners went to Iowa State and got blown out. The Cyclones were just 7-7 entering the contest, but they absolutely handled Oklahoma in an 81-68 laugher.
The Sooners’ offense is a three-headed monster with Kristian Doolittle, Austin Reaves, and Brady Manek each averaging over 14 points per game. Those three have carried the mail for Oklahoma’s offense, but the bigger issue for the Sooners is that their defense isn’t very good.
Over the course of the year, the Sooners give up nearly 70 points a game, ranking 200th among all teams in terms of defensive scoring. That should prove to be problematic against Kansas, which has plenty of offensive firepower and will be very angry after getting run off their home floor by Baylor.
This is the first meeting of the year between the two rivals, with each team defending its home floor last season.
How to watch Kansas at Oklahoma
- Date: Tuesday, Jan. 14
- Time: 9:00 p.m. ET
- Location: Norman, OK
- Venue: Lloyd Noble Center
- TV: ESPN
- Live Stream: WatchESPN
- Odds: TBA (The Action Network)
- Pick: Kansas
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