Three Key Plays: 3-Pointers, Free Throws and One Monstrous Dunk Key Win at KU

Wow … What a game, what a win!

The Cowboys celebrated the five-year anniversary of Marcus Smart’s victory flip over Phog Allen Fieldhouse’s center court with a victory nobody realistically saw coming.

OSU led for all but 2:45 of the game, and had a lot of huge and exciting moments. Of those, let’s look at three massive plays that impacted the game.

The Dunk

Forget the fact this is an #ESPNTop10 play and one of the most amazing dunks I’ve ever seen — he nearly lost the ball, recovered it, and finished the dunk all in one swift movement — it came when the Cowboys desperately needed points.

Early in the second half, Kansas had cut OSU’s 14-point lead in half with a 7-0 run. After trading a few misses, Kendall Smith was off on his jumper (the only shot he missed in the second half, by the way). Then, out of no where, McGriff put up the best play of his record-setting day, grabbing the offensive rebound and slamming it home.

This seems impossible. pic.twitter.com/DxeM7LXUWG

— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) February 3, 2018

The FTs that Sealed it

Free throws may not seem that exciting, but the end of this game could have gone Kansas’ way. In the closing seconds Devonte’ Graham scored five straight points, first hitting a 3-pointer, then knocking down to free throws to get the Jayhawks within three points with 14 seconds left.

The Cowboys’ last two trips to the line had ended with misses on the front end of and-one attempts by Kendall Smith and Lindy Waters. If this trip had ended similarly, it’s not a stretch to see Kansas coming down and nailing another triple to tie things up late, especially since they’d hit their last two.

After a smart timeout by Boynton to settle his team down, Kendall Smith calmly went to the line and knocked down both attempts to push the Cowboys’ lead back to five, all but sealing the victory.

Back-To-Back-to-Back-to-Back

Technically it’s four plays, but the four straight threes early in the first half were huge. They capped a 12-2 run that pushed OSU’s lead to 26-14 and didn’t all come from one guy.

It started with Cam McGriff who hit his first three since about Christmas. Carroll got in on the action with two straight from beyond the arc, and the Kendall Smith capped off the action with one of his own.

All three came off assists, from Averette, Solomon, and Carroll.

The run completely sucked the excitement out of the arena and set OSU up with the confidence they needed to pull off the win. Plus, man it was fun to watch OSU knock down shots from beyond the arc. The Cowboys have put together consecutive games shooting 40 percent or higher from deep for the first time since conference play started and for just the second time all season.