As Tuesday night’s game came down to the wire, senior guard Mike McGuirl stepped up and scored nine points in just over a minute, propelling a late comeback by Kansas State over No. 7 Oklahoma on his senior night. The Wildcats outscored the Sooners 15-4 in the final three minutes to seal the 62-57 upset victory Tuesday night.
“I told our guys we want to be the top story on SportsCenter tonight,” head coach Bruce Weber said. “If Mike is not, he’s got to be up there.”
According to ESPN, the Wildcats are the first team since Wake Forest in 1993-94 to have an NCAA Division II loss and a regular-season Top 10 win in the same season.
“I’m just thrilled for them,” Weber said. “To come from where we were to this week, the last couple of games … I probably can’t get them back to earth for a day or two.”
The Wildcats built off Saturday’s win over TCU and created its first winning streak since the last week of December 2020.
The Sooners have not won in Bramlage Coliseum since 2012 and have not swept K-State since that 2011-12 season.
K-State honored lone senior Mike McGuirl, the only member of the 2018 elite eight team. The Ellington, Connecticut, native scored a team-high of 19 points, his twenty-seventh game with double digits.
“I’m so happy for me, my teammates and coaches,” McGuirl said. “It’s a blessing to have this happen. You wish it was the whole season, but man, this was special.”
Related:
‘This program is going in the right direction’: Improvement finally pays off for men’s basketball
Oklahoma led for all but the final seconds of the first half while shooting 48 percent from the floor. Despite shooting 37 percent from the floor, the Wildcats dominated the final three minutes of the half which included a 7-2 run in the final two minutes to enter the break tied 29-29.
K-State was the aggressor in the opening minutes of the second half and opened the half with a 9-2 run, which gave the Wildcats its largest lead of the game at 38-31. The Sooners responded with a 15-4 run to regain the lead amid a five-minute-long scoring drought for K-State.
The Wildcats took the lead back with an 11-0 run over the final three minutes that featured three consecutive threes from McGuirl.
“Ya’ll know that I like to let it fly,” McGuirl said. “The shots were able to fall and I just believed.”
Oklahoma pulled within one with under thirty seconds to go, but the Wildcats were perfect on the free throw line down the stretch to seal the game.
“We’ve been like this the whole year, we have been close the whole year and we’ve let it go,” sophomore guard DaJuan Gordon said. “Today, everybody showed up big and helped us.”
Senior guard Austin Reaves led all scorers with 25 points as the Sooners shot 39 percent from the floor. The K-State defense — which has become a staple of Bruce Weber’s teams — was able to shut down the Sooners.
“It [the defense] was great, huge,” McGuirl said. “Everybody stepped up on defense … everyone played their role tonight and it was a team effort.”
A supporting cast of freshman forward Davion Bradford and freshman guard DaJuan Gordon, each finishing in double-digits, helped McGuirl. Gordon posted his fourth career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
K-State will look to keep their winning streak alive on Saturday afternoon as they travel to Morgantown, West Virginia, to face off against the No. 10 ranked West Virginia Mountaineers. Tip-off is scheduled for 3 p.m. on ESPN2.
West Virginia dominated the Wildcats in Manhattan earlier this season in a 69-47 rout led by an 18 point afternoon by sophomore guard Miles McBride. K-State turned the ball over 28 times in the contest, the most in the Bruce Weber era.
