Oklahoma Basketball Rebound: Sooners Blister Baylor with Sizzling Shooting
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma basketball rebounded from a tough loss earlier in the week, coming out with fire in their eye and a shooting display for the ages against 13th-ranked Baylor.
Oklahoma shot a sizzling 62 percent for the game at Baylor on Saturday, including a season-tying 16 made three-point shots, to defeat the Big 12-leading Bears 82-72 in a game that was much more lopsided than the final score indicated.
With the nation’s No. 2 scoring leader, Buddy Hield, sitting out nine minutes of the opening half, the top-ranked Sooners turned around a 19-16 Baylor lead in the opening 10 minutes of the game and took a 37-30 advantage into halftime.
The opening half of OU’s big rebound win at Baylor provided an example of the balance and overall strength of this Sooner team. Hield left the game at the 8:53 mark of the first half with just five points after picking up his second personal foul.
After Baylor went on an 11-4 run to begin the second half, knotting the score at 41-all, Hield connected on back-to-back three-pointers on successive possessions and Isaiah Cousins added one of his three treys for the game as Oklahoma took command of the contest. The Sooners were never headed after that and, in fact, opened up a 24-point advantage late in the game.
Over a 12 and a half-minute stretch in the second half, Oklahoma outscored Baylor by a 42-17 margin, and that pretty much summed up the game. The Sooners ended the week in which they moved into the No. 1 ranking in the land for the first time since the 1989-90 season with a split against two top-25 Big 12 teams on the road.
Sooner junior guard Jordan Woodard continued his hot shooting, leading OU with a game-high 20 points that included five-of-eight behind the three-point line. Four Oklahoma starters reached double digits in the scoring column. In addition to Woodard’s 20 and 19 by Hield, Cousins contributed 13 and Ryan Spangler had 11.
The one noticeable downside for the Sooners from what will go down as a quality win and Oklahoma’s fourth this season in six contests against ranked opponents was the rebounding line. The Sooners were beaten badly on the boards 34-19 and 14-2 on the offensive end. The offensive rebounding discrepancy was easily explained, however, by OU’s 62 percent shooting for the game.
Oklahoma moves into a first-place deadlock with Baylor, and perhaps a couple more teams depending on the outcome of Saturday’s games, in the Big 12 with a 5-2 conference mark and a 16-2 record overall.