Oklahoma basketball: Sooners fall short in Bedlam overtime thriller

Trae Young scored a career-high 48 points, but that wasn’t enough to avoid a second straight Oklahoma basketball loss, as Oklahoma State held on for an 83-81 home overtime win in Bedlam.

Young found some shooting rhythm late in the first half, but he was absolutely on fire after halftime, scoring 34 of his 48 points in the second stanza and overtime. The Sooners had a chance to pull out the win in the extra session, but a contested three-point shot fell short of the mark at the final horn as the frenzied Oklahoma State crowd stormed the court.

The Sooner superstar had a rough start to the game facing double teams and an aggressive Oklahoma State defense that did an excellent job preventing Young open looks and lanes to the basket. The problem early for the Sooners was that Young’s teammates were unable to pick up the slack and knock down shots.

Eight minutes into the game, Young was just 3 of 13 from the floor and one for six from three-point range. Six of OU’s first 14 points in the game came as a result of goaltending calls against Oklahoma State.

The Sooners fell behind by 19 points in the opening 10 minutes of the game on Saturday, making it appear that they had not recovered from the shellacking they absorbed earlier in the week at Kansas State. Oklahoma State led 25-6 at the 10:32 mark of the first half as the Cowboys threated to run away with this game at the outset.

Oklahoma State took a 42-30 advantage into the locker room at halftime, courtesy of a three-pointer by the Cowboys’ Kendall Smith at the buzzer. The second half opened with a 7-0 run by Oklahoma, and from that point on the Sooner offense and defense picked it up, making a game out of what looked like a rout in the early going.

Oklahoma took its first lead in the game, 56-53, with 7:50 remaining in the game. Over the next three-plus minutes, the lead changed hand five times, with Young hitting nothing but net from deep behind the three-point line on three consecutive possession.

Young sank two critical free throws with 11 seconds remaining in regulation to give the Sooners a 73-70 lead, but OSU’s Smith hit another buzzer-beating three-point shot with just over two seconds to go to send the game into the extra session.

Oklahoma State scored first in overtime on a three-pointer by Tavarius Shine, and that turned out to be the beginning of the end for the visiting Sooners.

Young scored six of OU’s eight points in the overtime session, but the Sooners never led in OT, suffering their third Big 12 loss and second in the same week.

Young’s 48 points would have been enough to win most games, but the rest of the Oklahoma team contributed just 33 total points, just seven coming from the OU bench. This lack of scoring output from the OU support cast is going to have to turn around quickly or the Sooners are going to find themselves on the losing end more often than not.

Young took nearly half of Oklahoma’s 82 shots in the game, going 14 of 39. The rest of his teammates combined made just 14 of 43 shot attempts.

Oklahoma State’s reserves outscored the Sooners’ bench 28-7. Oklahoma State scored 18 points off of 14 Oklahoma turnovers and 22 second-chance points.

Senior guard Jeffrey Carroll scored a team-high 26 points for the Cowboys, and Smith added 20 points off the bench.

Oklahoma, which was ranked No. 4 in the country at the beginning of the week has now lost three of its last five games, all three on the road. The Bedlam loss at Oklahoma State drops the Sooners to 14-4 overall and 4-3 in the Big 12 and sends them limping back to Norman, where they will host league-leading Kansas at Lloyd Noble Center on Tuesday.