KU battles back for improbable win

By By Ryan Colaianni (Contact)

Monday, February 6, 2006

Oklahoma had three opportunities to win Sunday’s game at Allen Fieldhouse in the final 1.7 seconds. Three wasn’t enough.

It was an unlikely finish for Kansas, coming back from 16 down midway through the second half to steal a 59-58 victory over No. 19 Oklahoma yesterday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Oklahoma junior guard Michael Neal’s final shot at the buzzer was short and the fieldhouse went crazy, giving Kansas their fifth victory in a row.

Kansas coach Bill Self said that the Jayhawks had played terribly for the first 32 minutes.

“We played about as well as we can play on both ends of the court the last eight and a half minutes,” Self said.

Neal said that he had thought he was fouled in that play, but he had not expected a call in that situation.

Kansas appeared to be out of the game with 10 minutes remaining, when it trailed by 16 points. Oklahoma then went cold from that point, making just three shots the rest of the way.

“I was getting down on the team a little bit because they just kept scoring back to back to back. The lead kept on getting higher,” freshman guard Brandon Rush said. “Then we just came together and our shots started falling.”

Freshman guard Brandon Rush scored 10 of his game-high 18 points during a 25-8 run.

Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said the loss was difficult because Kansas had outplayed OU for only the last six minutes of the game. The Jayhawks took their first lead in the second half on a Julian Wright dunk with less than a minute remaining.

Oklahoma took the lead back with less than 30 seconds to play with a three-point shot by Neal in the corner, but freshman guard Mario Chalmers responded quickly, driving into the lane on the other end and hitting a soft floater to give Kansas the lead for good.

“I looked at coach, he was just saying push the ball up and that’s what I tried to do,” Chalmers said. “I got to the paint and Bookout fell, so I was just tried to take the shot and fortunately I hit the shot.”

After five close losses earlier in the season, Kansas was happy to finally pull out a narrow win.

“It’s a real big win, to finally get a close one, to prove some people wrong that we can get a win in a close game,” Rush said.

Down nine early in the first half, Kansas used a 10-0 run midway through the first half to get back in the game and take a one-point lead before going down three at halftime.

The Jayhawks were lucky to be in the game after struggling to score early, missing open three-point shot and turning the ball over on early possessions.

Self’s actions after the game were evidence to the excitement of the game. The coach stood at the entrance to the tunnel to his team’s locker room with his hand in the air, taking high-fives from each of his players. A joyous student section stood behind him, and his players high-fived the crowd on their way off the floor.

Game notes:

Rush overtook senior Christian Moody as the team’s career-active points leader.

The victory was Kansas’ eighth straight against Oklahoma in games played in Allen Fieldhouse.

Being 16 points down was the largest deficit Kansas has faced in a victory since the January 2005 game against Georgia Tech.

The victory was Kansas’ 12th in its past 14 games.

— Edited by Hayley Travis

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