The team played like complete garbage for the last month he was in the lineup, and he was a big reason why.
Was he though?
In 14 conference games (13, really, given he played just 4 minutes at WVU), Harkless scored in double digits 9 times. He scored more than 15 three times and in our Big 12 opener on the road in Manhattan, where Sooner teams have gone to die, he scored 21 points. No one else was even close in that game except Gibson with 19. Plain and simple, we lose that game without Harkless (he also had seven rebounds).
In those 13 games he averaged 2.6 turnovers a game, but even that stat was skewed by two bad games, turnover-wise -- he had 8 at Stillwater and 7 at TCU, undeniably terrible outings in that regard. But in his other 11 games, he averaged 1.5 turnovers per game. And he had 15 and 11 points in those two games, including 5 of OU's 9 OT points in Fort Worth.
In Harkless' final game before the injury, the OT loss to texas in Norman, he scored 21 points with 5 steals, a block and just 1 turnover. OU didn't win that game, but it can fairly be argued that Harkless was the primary reason they were even competitive.
I would submit that singling out Harkless as the reason we lost so many conference games is misguided. If you wish to point to the oswho and TCU losses as being on his shoulders, fine, but as I demonstrated above, he made positive contributions in those games too (though I'm in no way defending his turnover numbers in those games).
I don't know why you decided Harkless was the player to blame this year, but clearly you did, as you have been relentless in pointing the finger at him at every opportunity. I think I've shown above that the story of Harkless' 2022 season is far more complicated and nuanced than the version you've been pushing the past weeks and months.
