OU Basketball: Seven a Downer Digit for Sooners on Saturday

The old cliché that you have to play all 60 minutes smacked the OU basketball Sooners right between the eyes on Saturday.

To borrow another well-worn and misquoted sports description, Oklahoma’s performance down the homestretch at Texas on Saturday was the quintessence of seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.

Feb 27, 2016; Austin, TX, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard Jordan Woodward (10) battles for the ball with Texas Longhorns guard Isaiah Taylor (1) in front of Longhorns forward Connor Lammert (21) during the second half at the Frank Erwin Special Events Center. The Longhorns won 76-63. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports /

All I can say is, we’ve seen this picture before, and it isn’t pretty.

Seven may be a lucky number for some, but for the Sooners against archrival Texas, in a game that meant a lot for both teams, it amounted to the kiss of death.

For those of you who don’t need to be reminded, I offer my humble apologies, but for the rest of you, allow me to painfully recount the worst ending to an Oklahoma basketball game this season. With a just over seven minutes to go in Saturday’s contest with Texas, Buddy Hield drained a three-point shot for his 28th, 29th and 30th points of the game to put the Sooners up by seven at 58-51 and matching their largest lead of the game.

The Sooners had multiple instances to pull away from Texas in the game, but the Longhorns managed to scratch their way back on every occasion and keep within striking distance.

Oklahoma had led its Red River rival for nearly 30 minutes in the game to that point and appeared to be headed to a season sweep and the Sooners’ sixth straight win over the Longhorns.

“I didn’t think that could happen.” —Buddy Hield

While perception often imitates reality, in this instance, it turned out to be the exact opposite. The Longhorns turned on the turbocharger after the Sooners went up by seven points and scored the next 22 unanswered points. By the time Oklahoma recorded its 60th point in the game, the Longhorns were up by 13, at 73-60, a 20-point swing.

During that nightmarish seven-minute stretch, Oklahoma missed nine consecutive shots, all of the jump shots and four of them from behind the three-point line.

“I didn’t think that could happen,” said Hield, the game’s high scorer with his 11th career 30-point game, afterward in his postgame comments to reporters.

“It’s very frustrating,” the OU All-American said. “Thank God it’s not the NCAA Tournament where you lose, you go home.”

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