Early Exit In March Madness A Disappointing Ending To a Historic Season For Men’s Basketball

Coach Ritchie McKay’s Liberty team has built a reputation on defying expectations over the past few years. From winning the ASUN in Liberty’s first year in the conference and winning a March Madness game to posting Liberty’s first-ever 30-win season last year, McKay has built a program that is beginning to turn heads around the nation through efficient offense and organized defense. 

With four seniors graduating in the middle of a year defined by a pandemic, this particular year was billed as a rebuild season for the Flames. Instead, Liberty won its conference for a third straight year and booked a ticket to Indianapolis for March Madness. 

The Flames had a No. 13-No. 4 matchup against Oklahoma State in the first round – and they were looking to defy expectations this weekend once again. But try as they did, they couldn’t overcome a slough of turnovers and foul trouble – and Liberty’s rebuild season that kept going finally came to an end with a 69-60 loss Friday night against a Cowboys team head and shoulders above any team Liberty has faced this season. 

Before the game, McKay discussed the challenges of preparing for a fast, physical Big 12 team like Oklahoma State as a school like Liberty where scheduling high-profile nonconference games can be difficult. Though Liberty powered through the ASUN and even played a few Power Five schools like Missouri and Purdue, McKay knew that Friday’s first-round game would be difficult. 

“I’m not sure we’ve played anyone as good as them, but we’ve tried to test ourselves in the nonconference with our schedule, and we’ll see on Friday if it prepared us well enough,” McKay said. “We’re at a stage and a point in our program that we want to test ourselves against the best. With the little bit of success we’ve had, it becomes harder and harder to schedule in the nonconference.” 

For a young team that only had two starters with NCAA Tournament experience, McKay hoped those games would give his players the big-game experience to stay focused come Friday. As the first half started, it seemed like his bets were paying off. 

The very first play of the game, senior Elijah Cuffee snagged the ball off Oklahoma State star and NBA prospect Cade Cunningham, highlighting the duel that the game would revolve around for the next 40 minutes. Led by Cuffee’s determined performance, Liberty held Cunningham to one first-half point and slowly settled into a shooting grove after a slow start. 

With the Flames down by four a few minutes later, junior Darius McGhee knocked down a quick-release 3-pointer, then burst down the court for a layup, providing a 5-0 run and giving the Flames their first lead of the night. Liberty would battle back and forth for the first half, taking a 30-27 lead into halftime, but a theme was unfolding that would ultimately be Liberty’s undoing: the Flames could not stop turning the ball over. 

Liberty averaged roughly nine turnovers per game this season – by the end of the first half, Liberty already had nine, and it would finish the game with 18, fully double its average. 

“It was the difference in the game,” McKay said after the game. “That’s uncharacteristic, we averaged nine turnovers in the year – we led the nation in fewest turnovers last year.”

With Liberty’s success so driven by its solid defensive system, pulling off big wins requires         efficient offense, but once Liberty’s young team lost its groove in the second half, it never found it again. Instead, Cunningham gradually grew into the game – Liberty needed a momentum shift, and the Cowboys weren’t just going to go away. 

“They did a good job of keeping us from executing what we wanted to do,” McGhee said. “Hats off to them for disrupting our offense today.”  

Hunted and harried, McGhee looked lost at times on the court, unable to get touches on the ball or find a shooting streak, shooting one-for-eight from the field and missing all five of his 3-point attempts in the second half. Against a team as a physical as Oklahoma State, Liberty needed his 3-point shooting, but aside from a couple runs, McGhee largely went cold.

With Liberty’s season top scorer frozen out, the Flames needed someone to step up – and Elijah Cuffee did his best to keep the Flames in the game. Cuffee had a team-high 16 points, knocking down four 3-pointers at crucial points throughout the game, while largely keeping prospective No. 1 NBA draft pick Cunningham locked down. 

After what turned out to be Cuffee’s last game for the Flames, McKay praised his player’s determination and leadership over the past four years. 

“Cuffee is so special. On the court we can talk about his accomplishments, his win total. We can talk about his defensive prowess, but what I love about him is his person,” McKay said. “He’s really become an exceptional leader. Our team wouldn’t be where we are without the selfless investment he’s made.” 

Even with Cuffee’s hot hand, however, the Flames could not narrow the gap. With both McGhee and Rode in foul trouble as the Cowboys’ physical approach drew foul after foul, Drake Dobbs and Keegan McDowell both had to play over ten minutes in the game off the bench.

“The game was extremely physical,” McKay said. “(The Cowboys) really just put their head down, they drove it, and they were the aggressor. We … had to rest Darius and Kyle a little bit, when most nights we do a pretty good job of staying out of foul trouble. Tonight wasn’t one of them.”

McKay prides his team on the fact that they are more than the sum of their parts. But on a night where individual mistakes and the Cowboys’ physicality nullified that system, the Flames ultimately fell short. 

When Cunningham looked Cuffee up and down, then arrowed home a 3-pointer and stared a heckling fan down as he turned away with 1:41 left, he knew he had sealed Liberty’s fate. Much of the pregame conversation had revolved around Cunningham, and Liberty had kept him largely quiet – but he showed up when the Cowboys needed him. 

“I think he’s a great player,” McGhee said after the game. “He never looks uncomfortable or out of whack. … In the second half, even though his shots were contested, he made them when it counted.” 

In the end, Oklahoma State just had too much in the tank for Liberty to keep up with – and Liberty’s season petered to an end.

“Congratulations to Oklahoma State,” McKay said. “That’s a really good basketball team, with a special player. They did a great job making it really hard for us, but (I’m) really proud of our group, the way they represent our program, our university. Tonight just wasn’t quite our night.”

John Nekrasov is the Sports Editor. Follow him on Twitter at @john_nekrasov.