Oklahoma vs. Florida: Sooners Tip Off Against Another Top 25 Foe
By Chip Rouse
Ten games, 20 teams, one thrilling day of power-conference college basketball. That describes the particulars of the fourth annual Big 12-SEC Basketball Challenge, which this season includes Oklahoma vs. Florida.
For the second time this season, OU head coach Lon Kruger will be going up against a team he once coached. Kruger coached at Florida from 1990 to 1996, and in fact was the Gators head coach the only other time Florida played Oklahoma in men’s basketball. Florida defeated the Sooners 76-72 in overtime in 1995 in the All-College Tournament in Oklahoma City.
The Gators come into Saturday’s game at Oklahoma with an overall record of 15-5 and ranked 25th in the country in both the Associated Press Top 25 and the Coaches Poll. Florida is 6-2 in the SEC and currently is in third place behind conference-leader Kentucky and South Carolina.
The last time out, the Gators hammered LSU 106-71 in a game in which Florida shooters were deadly accurate from long range. The Gators made a program-record 19 three-point shots. The 106 points was the most scored by a Florida men’s basketball team against an SEC opponent in 42 years.
Junior forward Devin Robinson led the Gators in the win at LSU with a game-and career-high 24 points. Florida’s leading scorer on the season is 6-foot, 2-inch sophomore KeVaughn Allen, who averages 13.9 points a game.
In his sixth season as the head coach of the Sooners, Kruger already has more wins at Oklahoma than he did in six full seasons at Florida. The Sooners are 119-68 under Kruger. His record at Florida, which he led to the Final Four in 1993-94, was 104-80.
Oklahoma is hoping to break a two-game losing streak. In their last outing, the Sooners had victory snatched right out of their hands when Texas freshman Andrew Jones made a last-second three-point shot from 25 feet away from the basket to give the Longhorns an 84-83 comeback win. The loss to its Red River rival dropped Oklahoma’s record in the Big 12 to 2-6 and 8-11 overall.
The Sooners have already lost three more games than they did all of last season, when OU finished the season 29-8 and Kruger took OU to its fifth Final Four all-time.
In their heartbreaking loss to Texas earlier in the week, the Sooners wasted a combined 50-point performance from freshmen Kristian Doolittle, who scored a career-high 29 points and Kameron McGusty, who contributed 21 more.
Generally, as Jordan Woodard goes, so go the Sooners. Oklahoma’s leading scorer took only six shots the entire game against Texas and made just one. He ended the night with just eight points, nine below his season average.
Both teams are averaging around 78 points a game on offense. Florida, however, has better defensive numbers than the Sooners. The Gators are holding their opponents to 67 points a game. OU’s opponents are averaging about eights more points than that a game.
Even though there is a wide disparity in the season record of the 25th-ranked Gators and Oklahoma, they are surprisingly more comparable statistically.
Oklahoma’s record at Lloyd Noble Center the past 10 seasons is 122-28, an .813 winning percentage. The Sooners have already lost four games at the LNC this season. That’s almost as many as the five they lost at home in the last three seasons combined.
Florida marks the fifth team currently ranked in the Top 25 that Oklahoma has played this season. Including Florida, the Sooners have played 11 teams ranked in the top 50 of the ESPN Basketball Power Index.
Game Prediction
Lloyd Noble Center hasn’t been where opposing teams go to die this season. The Sooners are just 5-4 at home this season, a far cry from recent past seasons. OU has already lost to two top 25 teams (Baylor and Kansas) at home this season. Florida will be number three. Sorry Sooner fans. Florida 72, Oklahoma 65