Oklahoma basketball: Numbers that matter from Sooners loss to Alabama

The Oklahoma basketball loss to Alabama on Saturday was their fifth of the season, but even more troubling is that it was the Sooners’ third consecutive loss to an unranked opponent.

The Sooners have lost three of their last four games, with the three losses bookending a huge home victory this past Tuesday over fifth-ranked Kansas.

If I told you before the game that Khadeem Lattin would lead the Sooners in scoring against Alabama, you wouldn’t have believed me. But that was exactly what happened. Lattin made eight of 11 shots and added two out of two from the free-throw line for a team-high 18 points, two points shy of his career high.

While Lattin was approaching a career high, OU’s freshman phenom Trae Young posted his second worst scoring game of the season, ending with 17 points and eight assists. Young scored 15 points in the Sooners’ season opener against Nebraska-Omaha, and followed that up with 18 consecutive games in which he scored 20 or more points, including three games of over 40 points.

Young took 17 shots in the Alabama game, eight more than he did in the Sooners’ win over Kansas but a far cry from the 39 he took a week ago against Oklahoma State, when he scored a season- and career-high 48, or 59 percent of Oklahoma’s 81 points in that game.

The Alabama defense hounded Young the entire game, making it difficult for him to get open shots and denying the nation’s top scorer the ball once he had given it up. The Crimson Tide blocked 12 shots and stole the ball eight times, and scored 18 points off of 13 Oklahoma turnovers.

The dagger in the heart as far as OU was concerned was Young being held scoreless over the final 11 minutes of the game. The Crimson Tide outscored the Sooners 25-13 during that span, erasing a 60-55 Oklahoma advantage and its largest lead in the game into an 80-73 victory.

Here are some of the other numbers that matter from Alabama’s upset win over 12th-ranked Oklahoma:

5 – First-half points by Trey Young, his lowest first-half total of the season.

8 – Blocked shots in the game by Alabama’s Donta Hall.

9 – Number of free throws shot in the game by the Sooners. They made seven of them. Alabama shot 22 free throws, making 12 of 22.

18 – Points by Alabama freshman point guard Collin Sexton. Along with Young, Sexton is considered one of the top point guards in the country.

21 – Twenty-one of Alabama’s 30 field goals in the game were scored in the paint.

25 – Bench points scored by the Alabama reserves, compared with three points off the OU bench.

29.6 – Oklahoma’s three-point field goal percentage against Alabama. That is 10 points down from the Sooners’ 39.5 season average.

11:19 – Time remaining in the game when Trae Young scored for the final time. a long-range three-pointer, his fourth of the game.

55.6 – Alabama’s shooting percentage for the game (30 of 54), 10 points higher than its season average.

15,383 – Attendance at Alabama’s Coleman Coliseum for the Oklahoma game in the Big 12/SEC Basketball Challenge.