What comes around goes around. This is true in life, and apparently true in sports as well. With all the griping and moaning after the Oklahoma State basketball team’s 48-46 win over Oklahoma last week, you would have thought the Sooners lost a football game.
The disputed call (or no-call, if that helps) in which Cowboy Victor Williams got off the winning shot, appeared to be after the shot clock had run out. However, after some review, the horn hadn’t sounded, and apparently, the horn is the only thing that matters.
Don’t bother telling that to OU’s Kelvin Sampson, though.
The same factor that ruled against the Sooners also ruled against Texas Tech Monday night. In OU’s 69-64 overtime win over Tech, Hollis Price got off a last-second shot that sent the game into overtime. However, someone forgot to work the game clock. The first clock pause error came with 6.7 seconds remaining when the game was tied at 58-58.
After two Will Chavis free throws, OU guard Hollis Price caught an inbound pass. As Price dribbled the ball twice, 4.5 seconds still hung on the clock. Price then went the length of the court for the game-tying shot. Without the two errors, Tech would have won the game.
Though the Big 12 can’t change the outcome of the game, the lesson still stands that the same fate that screwed the Sooners and Raiders out of their respective games will screw every team at one time or another. Coaches that whine after the unfair outcome of a game (Sampson) need to shut up.
It might not be in the next game or the next 10 games, but everything will even out in the end. Who knows, maybe the cycle will come full-circle against the Cowboys in Lubbock Sunday?
Speaking of the Cowboys’ game against the Red Raiders, bench production and an entire team effort will be big factors against Tech. With OSU being able to get quality offensive production from as many as five players, the leading scorer could be the player who is just feeling it on Sunday afternoon.
“I just think that we’ve got an arsenal of guys that can come out and give you 20 each and every night,” said Cowboy Victor Williams. “We’ve got guys coming into the season, that you never know who the guy is going to be on that night. What helps out on the offensive end is that teams coming in can’t say ‘okay, if we shut this guy down, then we’re going to win the game.’ It could be anybody each and every night.
“So we’re the type of team, (that is) very unselfish. We know that one guy might get hot this night, and another might get hot another night.”
In last season’s game at Tech, OSU was in a funk, offensively, and as a team. The seniors of this season’s team, though, are approaching everything with a positive attitude that starts in practice.
“Well in practice, we just come everyday with a positive attitude,” said Cheyne Gadson. “As a team, last year, I would say we somewhat fell apart.
“This year we know, especially the seniors, what to do to keep us going and keep us winning is to stay together and stay positive in practice and keep working hard everyday.”
With OSU owning the nation’s longest winning streak at 13 games, the opposing team is always ready for the Cowboys. The title doesn’t affect the OSU players, however.
“I guess that’s good,” said Williams of the winning streak. “But this team isn’t really worried about records and where we’re ranked and all of that. I think we go into each and every game knowing that we’ve got the toughest conference in the country, and if we don’t play well, we can lose.
“I think that’s been helping us out all season — that we just come into each and every game with that mentality that we’ve got to play hard to win the game.”
Media outlets, like ESPN’s Web site, speak highly of OSU. Joe Lunardi’s “Bracketology” has the Cowboys in a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament — if the season ended today.
Don’t expect to see an OSU player looking up their rankings on ESPN.com, though.
“There’s not one player on this team that would go onto the computer everyday, looking to see where we’re ranked,” said Gadson. “Every player is coming into practice and is like, ‘let’s get better.’ Forget the rankings. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, and the media’s going to say what they’re going to say.
“We’re just trying to get better everyday.”
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