Oklahoma basketball: Numbers that mattered from ‘Guns Up’ stare down
By Chip Rouse
Keenan Evans of Texas Tech got the better of the Sooners and Mr. Oklahoma basketball this season, Trae Young, on Tuesday night.
Young may be the nation’s leading scorer and the more talked about player, but it was Evans who stole the show in Tuesday night’s 88-78 win by Texas Tech over Oklahoma.
Evans launched a rainbow three-point shot from the right side of the floor that hit nothing but net on way through the cylinder, breaking a 66-all tie, the 17th and final one of the game, with 5:59 remaining. That shot not only broke the tie, but also broke the back of an Oklahoma basketball team desperate to end a three-game losing streak.
From the point the game was deadlocked at 66, Texas Tech outscored the Sooners 22-12, scoring 52 second-half points.
Evans knocked in a game-high 26 points, including four of seven on three-point tries, while the Texas Tech defense held Young to 19 points, 10 below his season average, and just eight in the second half of the game. Young’s final points came on a pair of free throws at the 15:52 mark in the second half that put the Sooners ahead 49-48.
The loss was OU’s fourth in a row, seventh in the last nine games and seventh consecutive road loss.
Here are some other numbers that mattered from the Sooners’ 25th game of the season and ninth loss:
0 – Fast-break points by Texas Tech in the game. The Sooners had only one fast-break basket.
3 – Number of times Trae Young has not been OU’s leading scorer in a game this season.
7 – The 78 points Oklahoma scored against Texas Tech was the second time this season that the Sooners scored under 80 against the Red Raiders. The Sooners have been held below 80 points only five other times out of 25 games in 2017-18.
9 – Trae Young missed all nine of his three point tries against Texas Tech. In his last two games, he is just 1 of 17 from three-point range.
11 – In addition to the 17 ties in the OU-Texas Tech game, there were 11 lead changes.
28 – The Sooner bench came alive against Texas Tech, outscoring the Red Raider reserves 28 to 24. Jamuni McNeace had 11 points for Oklahoma, all in the first half, and Kameron McGusty contributed 13, including 3 of 3 from behind the three-point line.
31.7 – Oklahoma shot 46.4 percent as a team in the game, but was just 7 of 22 from three-point range for 31.7 percent. Texas Tech shot 52.4 percent (11 of 21) from long range. (60 percent in the first half on 6 out of 10).
39 – Trae Young played all but one minute in the game. The fact that he wasn’t as productive down the stretch, when Oklahoma needed him the most, could have been related to the number of minutes he saw action.
55 – Combined points scored by junior Christian James in the Sooners’ past two games. He scored a career-high 22 at Iowa State and upped that by one in OU’s loss at Texas Tech on Tuesday.
15,098 – Attendance at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock for Tuesday night’s game.