We recap Wednesday night's Big 12 battle between Oklahoma and Kansas State in The Final at K-StateOnline.

Don't look now, but Kansas State has won back-to-back Big 12 Conference home games.

Both wins have come against teams who entered the evening in the top half of the Big 12 Conference. A week ago the Wildcats blew out West Virginia (currently 16-3 and 4-2 in the league), and tonight Bruce Weber's team controlled what was a 13-6, 3-3 (Big 12) Oklahoma squad, winning by a final of 61-53

K-State started up 6-0 and maintained that six-point edge (8-2) heading into the first media timeout with 15:58 left in the opening half. That lead would get as large as eight points on a Cartier Diarra driving finish - his second such finish on three possessions - at the 12-minute mark, then ballooned to 10 (14-4) on a Mike McGuirl shot clock buzzer beater.

The Sooners would briefly chip away and get within six before another shot from McGuirl, this one a triple, and a Xavier Sneed baseline jumper left the Wildcats with a 19-8 lead with more than eight minutes still remaining in the fist half. K-State was still up 11 with four minutes left to play in the half, but Brady Manek's first points for the Sooners (three of four from the foul line on back-to-back possessions) kept OU within striking distance at 25-17 with 3:24 before the intermission.

A DaJuan Gordon triple would give the Wildcats back an 11-point edge with three minutes left in the half, but OU answered back with a quick 5-0 spurt to keep the Wildcats from creating too much separation and to make the score just 28-22 in favor of K-State at the half.

Makol Mawien grabbed three rebounds and scored four points in the first 90 seconds of the second half to immediately push K-State's lead back to 10 points. A Sneed driving finish with 15:51 then gave the Cats a 12-point edge heading into the under-16 media timeout. Montavious Murphy would then give the Wildcats their biggest lead of the contest (37-22) on a swished in corner three with 15 minutes to play.

K-State never lost control, but the Wildcats also found putting OU away to be a challenge - much like it was earlier this year in Norman when the Wildcats lost despite leading by seven with four minutes to play. The Sooners got to within 11 after a sloppy sequence from K-State, but D. Gordon knifed his way inside and found a way to finish for a 44-31 K-State edge with 7:18 to play.

Sneed would soon after hit another three, with the shot clock close to expiring, to push the Cats' lead to 14, and David Sloan got a steal and lay-up to make it 49-33 - and nearly eliminate any real doubt - with roughly six minutes still left to play.

Oklahoma would close the gap in the final seconds with a furious late rally, but OU never got within a possession of the Wildcats.

Let's break down K-State's win with help from Jimmy Goheen and Chris Nelson the rest of the way.

ANTONIO GORDON

A. Gordon sat out the second game of his three-game suspension stemming from last week's incident between Kansas and Kansas State.

DaJUAN GORDON

D. Gordon earned another start against the Sooners, not scoring his first points until a pair of free throws with 6:51 left in the first half to put K-State up 22-11. Gordon's first field goal game in the form of a corner three with 3:08 left before the break, which slowed a brief Sooner challenge and extended K-State's lead to 28-17. Gordon's next hoop stopped another OU run, as his inside basket with 7:18 to play answered four straight Sooner points and put the Cats back up 13. Gordon's low-light, unfortunately, came when he missed a wide-open breakaway dunk in the closing seconds, much to the dismay of Weber.

MONTAVIOUS MURPHY

Murphy remained part of the Wildcats' starting lineup, and although he didn't score (or attempt a shot) in the first half he grabbed five rebounds and committed zero turnovers in his 12 first-half minutes. The freshman forward didn't score his first points - or take that first shot - until there were 15 minutes left to play. That first look, though, was a made corner triple to give the Wildcats' a 37-22 lead over the visiting Sooners.

K-State won a second straight home game, this time without the offense that was featured vs. West Virginia. This certainly wasn't a pretty game to watch, but winning is better than the alternative. Bruce Weber brought his record against Lon Kruger to 11-5 and a perfect 8-0 in Manhattan.

Three Takeaways

1. K-State won with its strength by a wide margin. OU turned it over on 27.1% of its possessions, while K-State only turned it over on 11.4% of the Cats'. Protecting the ball may have been the bigger key, as K-State had a TO rate in Big 12 play of 23.5%, worst in the league.

2. Shooting was a struggle again. After a nice first half at 50% on twos K-State was only 36.8% in the second and was out shot on twos by 3% for the game. The Cats were slightly better than the cold shooting Sooners from deep, 26.1% to 19%.

3. Free throws evened up. FT rate was a major problem in Norman - and again in the first half - but K-State evened that up toward the end of the game when OU had to foul. The Cats only made 60%, including a couple front ends of one-and-one situations that made the final margin a bit closer than it needed to be.

Mike McGuirl had one of the better games of his career with 16 points and an extremely efficient 1.56 offensive rating, but he was the only Wildcat above 0.95 for the night. Diarra and Sneed both scored in double figures, but again it was 22 combined points on 29 shots with offensive ratings of 0.56 (ouch!) and 0.84 respectively. Those two need to get that up over 1.00 on a regular basis for this team to beat better teams, or win on the road.

Sloan was solid with a five assist and 0 turnover night, but only 3-of-9 shooting for an offensive rating of 0.92. Mawien was huge on the boards with 10, but only ended up a 0.79 for offensive efficiency. Gordon and Murphy had steady games, and Levi Stockard struggled to an efficiency of only 0.50.

Traditional statistics provided by Kansas State University

It was another good start for K-State offensively. Like against Alabama, the Wildcats had a good combination of movement without the basketball and individual playmaking. K-State continues to rely on David Sloan more and more to facilitate and create offense. In addition to involving him in the usual high ball screen actions, K-State ran two different sets to get him the ball on the move, and both started by him making a pass to the post at the elbow area.

On the first he cut to the same side of the floor as Makol Mawien, who had the basketball on the right elbow, faked a down screen for Xavier Sneed, and then cut hard off Mawien for a handoff. Sloan was able to get downhill in the middle of the lane off the handoff. On the second, Sloan passed to Murphy on the left elbow and again cut right. This time he received a screen to cut back to the basketball. The Wildcats ran several other actions throughout the night that started with getting the basketball to the elbow area. This keeps the defense from loading up on one side and forces them to defend all areas of the floor.

Defensively, the Wildcats got really good effort from all five guys on the floor, which is what it takes to play really good team defense. In the second half, Oklahoma reversed the ball four different times on one possession, and each time a Wildcat was there on the catch. Every guy on the court was scrambling. The ball ended up in the post, and Mawien finished the possession by not going for a shot fake and forcing a difficult shot.

On another play Cartier Diarra was one pass away from the ball, which was on the left wing. As the OU player came off a ball screen, Diarra slid over to cut off the driving lane. Oklahoma made two passes to reverse the ball clear to the right corner, and Diarra was there on the catch after the second pass to take away an open three. It was a play that combined great recognition of knowing where to help the helper after giving the initial help with great effort to sprint across the floor.

In general, K-State’s recognition defensively was better tonight. Both Sloan and DaJuan Gordon did a nice job of sliding over on ball reversals to provide quick help and give the primary defender time to recover to the basketball. At the end of a shot clock, Mike McGuirl and Sneed correctly switched a high ball screen between Austin Reaves and Kristian Doolittle to prevent an open look, and then D. Gordon and Sneed both provided help when Doolittle tried to take the smaller McGuirl to the basket.

On their ball screen coverage, the Wildcats were solid in getting three sets of eyes on the guard coming off the ball screen and forming a wall with those defenders. What I mean by that is the primary on ball defender fought over the top of the screen, the defender on the screener provided soft help underneath the screen, and the defender one pass away slid over to close down the potential driving lane as I described above with Diarra.

When the Wildcats struggle offensively, there is a noticeable difference in the amount of ball and player movement. In addition, K-State is hurt by its inconsistent passing and the person receiving the pass not always be ready to do something with the basketball on the catch. When a pass is at a guy’s knees, or behind him, or the receiver isn’t ready to make the next play, it can bog down the offense. There were examples tonight of K-State doing both of those things well. On a couple of occasions I saw D. Gordon spotted up in the corner with his butt down and left foot forward in a good shooting position and his hands out ready for a pass. Diarra caught a pass at the top of the key and knew before the catch he had his guy beat down the middle of the lane. And coming off a ball screen, Sloan made a skip pass to D. Gordon in the corner that hit him right in his shooting pocket.

On four different occasions, a Wildcat player sprinted down the court after a turnover to prevent a layup. Those are winning plays. On the first, Montavious Murphy committed a foul, but it was a good foul. On the next two, Sneed stripped Reaves and forced a missed dunk. After the missed dunk D. Gordon, who was not in the game at the time, got up from his seat on the bench and gave Sneed a high five as he ran back down the court. It’s a very small thing that has no impact on the scoreboard, but it’s something I love to see.

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