Don’t blame the men’s Oklahoma basketball squad for starting to look over its shoulder after suffering back-to-back losses for the first time this season.
The 20th-ranked Sooners lost 75-72 in a Red River Showdown at Texas on Saturday night. It marked the fourth consecutive season Oklahoma has failed to pick up a win when the Red River game was played in Austin.
The Sooners entered Big 12 play with an 11-1 nonconference record, but have won just twice in six conference games thus far.
The immediate cause for concern is that OU was 14-3 at this stage of the season a year ago before falling off the cliff and winning just four times in 15 games the remainder of the season. And that swoon began with a loss at Oklahoma State, where the Sooners are headed on Wednesday this coming week.
Going into Saturday night’s game at Texas, OU was 11-1 this season when outrebounding its opponent and 11-2 when scoring more points in the paint. The Sooners did neither on Saturday and ended up losing by three.
Here are a dozen more notable numbers from OU’s loss to Texas:
2 — Only two fast-break points were scored in the entire game (by Oklahoma).
5 — Blocks in the game by Texas 6-foot, 11-inch center Jaxson Hayes, two more than the entire OU team.
6 — Six of Texas’ seven losses this season have been by six or fewer points. The Longhorns held off archrival Oklahoma to win by three.
8 — Total lead changes in the game, most of which came in the second half.
11 — Oklahoma scored 11 points off of six Texas turnovers.
25 — Total foul shots taken in the game by Texas, of which the Longhorns made 20.
36 — Total minutes logged in the game (out of 40 total) by OU freshman Jamal Bieniemy, making his first start of the season. He scored 11 points.
34-24 — Points by which the Longhorns outscored the Sooners in the paint.
54.8 — Oklahoma’s shooting percentage in the second half on Saturday in scoring 48 points
68 — Four of Texas’ five starters scored 68 of the Longhorns’ 75 points in the game.
94 — The game started off extremely slow, with OU and Texas combining for just 53 points in the first 20 minutes. The offenses heated up in the second half, however, as the two teams put up 46 and 48 points, respectively, or 94 total points.
11,991 — Attendance at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin for the game.