Kansas basketball: Jayhawks fall short in road loss to Oklahoma State, McCormack has another solid night

Falling behind after a decent start, Kansas basketball would have a tough time hanging around with the Cowboys. David McCormack has a strong night despite the 75-70 loss in Stillwater.

What was an “edge of your seat” ending for most Kansas basketball fans, turned into a disappointing ending on the Jayhawk’s road trip to Oklahoma State?

If your #6 Kansas, this isn’t a good look. The loss shows just how easily conference schools are outworking us offensively and this will need to change going forward.

Finding our sharpshooters, Christian Braun and Jalen Wilson, proved especially hard. The duo collected only 11 points on the evening. Only Braun was able to snag a three-point bucket against the Cowboys.

On a positive note, David McCormack showed up for Kansas and helped keep the Jayhawks in it with 24 points, a massive 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks. These are solid numbers for McCormack and we should be glad he can turn it on when we need it.

Sustaining the action we’ve seen from Dave will be a must from here on out, as Kansas seems to be ‘out of gear’ when fending off our tougher conference foes.

Rounding off Oklahoma State’s ‘lower end of the conference’ defense was surprisingly difficult and things simply didn’t click for the Jayhawks. Along with perimeter issues, Cade Cunningham had an 18 point performance for Oklahoma State, it’s obvious this was taxing Kansas down the stretch.

Stopping Cunningham was a vital part of yesterday’s game-plan and it seems as if the Jayhawk’s defense couldn’t handle his speed. He oftentimes beat us down the court and tended to come up with some space in transition.

Despite a 17-2 run in the end, Kansas chose the wrong time to hit the gas. Oklahoma State would run away with a game that could have gone in any direction, but also a game that they beat Kansas offensively for most of the game.

The loss to Oklahoma State shapes a different picture for Kansas moving forward with their schedule. It has a lot of fans curious about how far they’ll be able to go if we’re having this much trouble with unranked programs in our conference.

Regardless, Kansas will need to rebound from this loss too, and get back to the drawing board to correct our defensive issues. Hopefully, we can find a role for McCormack on defense too, and help pick up the pace defensively.

Kansas will find themselves back home against Iowa State later this week and will hopefully be able to mitigate some of their issues and pick themselves up after this tough loss.