Texas Tech completed the trifecta on Wednesday night, making the slumping Oklahoma basketball team its third straight top-25 victim with a 65-63 victory over the 3rd-ranked Sooners.
Something has definitely gone south for the once high-scoring Sooners. The shots that were once falling at close to a 50-percent rate aren’t. and Oklahoma has reached the 70-point level in just one of the last four games. The Sooners have scored 80 or more points in 15 games this season, but 72 is the most they have scored in the last four games, three of them losses.
The Big 12’s leading scorer, Buddy Hield, scored the first points of the game, a three-pointer, but connected just five other times out of 16 attempts, including just three of ten beyond the three-point arc, for a season-low 16 points.
For the second straight game, OU was held below 40 percent shooting from the floor. The Sooners were held to 38-percent from the floor by the stingy Texas Tech defense. That followed a 33-percent shooting performance in a four-point loss to Kansas on Saturday.
One good thing that happened for Oklahoma in the Texas Tech game was Jordan Woodard getting his shooting eye back. The junior point guard had been struggling on the offensive end recently, but had 25 points to lead the Sooners on 7 0f 14 from the field and 3 of 7 with the three-ball.
In the last three games, the Red Raiders have defeated No. 14 Iowa State, No. 21 Baylor and now No. 3 Oklahoma, all in one week’s time. That should be enough to get 16-9 Texas Tech off the bubble and into the NCAA Tournament as perhaps the seventh Big 12 team to make the tournament field this season.
After trailing by three at halftime and for most of the second half, the Sooners kept it close and actually opened up a a four-point advantage at 61-57 with 2:45 remaining. The Red Raiders, however, went on a 5-0 run over the next minute and a half to recapture the lead at 62-61, and that was as close at OU would get the rest of the way.
Ryan Spangler had an opportunity to tie the game with a point-blank shot at the rim with five seconds remaining, but the shot was off the mark. A television replay made it appear that Spangler was fouled on the shot, but it was not called, and the Texas Tech fans proceeded to storm the court in celebration of what probably is the biggest win in head coach Tubby Smith’s three seasons in Lubbock.
The game was tied 14 times and there were 15 lead changes, so the Sooners had plenty of opportunities to get control of the game. They were outhustled on loose balls and offensive rebounds leading to second-chance points, and in the end that was the difference in the game.
Oklahoma, which falls to 20-5 on the season and 8-5 in the Big 12, heads back to Norman with lots of questions to be answered and a lot of work to do if the Sooners want to avoid going down for a fourth time in five games in a rematch at West Virginia on Saturday.