NORMAN, Okla. -- Call it a miracle, call it Sooner Magic or call it luck. Whatever it is, call it another one-point win for No. 22 Oklahoma.
Taj Gray scored 23 points, including the go-ahead basket with 1:15 to play, and Terrell Everett added 12 points and 10 assists to give the Sooners a 71-70 win against Kansas State on Saturday.
It was the third straight one-point win for Oklahoma.
"That's nuts," said forward Kevin Bookout, who had a key block down the stretch. "I don't think I've ever played in three games back-to-back-to-back where it's been one point like this. I don't know. It's weird."
Oklahoma beat Texas Tech by the same score Monday night and before that eked out an 83-82 victory against Iowa State.
"We're playing good enough to win, and that's a great attribute to have," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. "Our kids know how to win games."
The Wildcats (14-11, 5-9 Big 12) had one last chance for the win, but Dramane Diarra's contested putback from the right block came up short and the Sooners (19-6, 10-4) survived again.
Gray hit a turnaround jumper from the left block to give Oklahoma a 71-70 lead with 1:15 left and Bookout blocked David Hoskins' shot in the lane to give the Sooners the ball back in the final minute.
Everett let the clock run down before pushing into the lane and missing a difficult left-hander with about 20 seconds left. That gave Kansas State one final possession.
Akeem Wright took the inbounds pass with 10.6 seconds left and dribbled upcourt before passing to Hoskins in the lane. Hoskins' turnaround shot fell into Diarra's hands, but he was unable to score against Bookout as the buzzer sounded.
It was the second straight one-point loss to a Top 25 team for Kansas State, which lost 65-64 to No. 7 Texas on Wednesday. The Wildcats have now lost nine games by five points or less, surpassing the 1938-39 and 1977-78 teams for the mot losses by that margin in school history.
"These close games against teams that are ranked or against teams that are supposed to beat us just goes to show that we should beat anybody," Wright said.
Sampson said Texas "got lucky" when it won against Kansas State and then started to say the Sooners did too before he stopped.
"In order to say you got lucky, well you've got to be good enough to get lucky first of all," Sampson said. "We won the game, so give Oklahoma some credit. They could have won it, but we won it. That's why you give our kids a lot of credit."
Oklahoma's Michael Neal went 3-for-9 from 3-point range and finished with 15 points, but had a streak of four straight games with at least five 3-pointers snapped.
Cartier Martin scored 26 points -- one less than his career high -- and Hoskins added 17 points for Kansas State. Mario Taybron, making his second straight start in place of point guard Clent Stewart, matched his career best with 12 points. Stewart, still limited by an ankle injury, played six minutes, took only one shot and didn't score.
"(Coach Jim Wooldridge) was pleased with our effort, how we fought hard," Wright said. "He said that we basically had that game, but we let it slip away a little bit. He wasn't disappointed in the way that we played.
"It's just another tough loss but he just loved our performance out there."
The Wildcats came close to getting some revenge for a 69-68 loss last year to Oklahoma that's now known among Sooners fans as the "Miracle in Manhattan." In that game, the Sooners fell behind by 16 before completing the biggest comeback in Sampson's 12 seasons at Oklahoma when Drew Lavender ran the length of the floor and banked in a left-handed runner at the buzzer.
This game, though, was close throughout.
Kansas State got out to a quick 11-4 lead before Neal hit back-to-back 3-pointers to tie it at 15, then made two free throws following a technical foul against Wooldridge to put Oklahoma ahead.
The Sooners went up 32-26 when Everett lobbed the ball inside to set up a Gray dunk, then hit a 3-pointer from the right wing.
Kansas State scored the next seven points for a brief lead on Cartier Martin's 3-pointer, but Oklahoma pushed back and took a 38-37 lead into halftime.
Alternating baskets, the two teams swapped the lead nine times in the first 5½ minutes of the second half before the Wildcats created a little distance on Lance Harris' jumper that made it 56-50.
A three-point play by Hoskins with 8:20 left gave the Wildcats their biggest lead of the second half at 63-56, but then Oklahoma started carving its way back.
Everett and Gray scored back-to-back baskets, Nate Carter added a 3-pointer and Neal connected on a jumper from the right side to tie it at 65 with 5 minutes to play.
Martin gave the Wildcats their final lead at 70-69 with a jumper from the left baseline with 1:43 left.
When Diarra's putback caromed off the rim, it dropped Kansas State to 0-7 this season when opponents score 70 points or more. The Wildcats are 1-26 in their last 27 games when opponents surpass 70 points.
Oklahoma has won eight in a row against the Wildcats.
