Oklahoma basketball: Sooners’ can’t score, buried by Baylor

u expect a better effort at home against a beatable Big 12 opponent, but Oklahoma basketball failed to show up against Baylor on Monday and suffered an embarrassing 77-47 loss.

It was the Sooners’ lowest scoring output of the season and perhaps the worst loss in the Lon Kruger coaching effort at Oklahoma. The Sooners shot a deplorable 27.6 percent in the opening half, while Baylor connected on 16 of 29 field goals, eight more than OU, and four of nine from behind the three-point line to run out to a 39-21 halftime advantage.

And the damage became even worse in the second half as the Sooners were never got above 28 percent shooting for the game and were just 20 percent from three-point range (4 of 20). Meanwhile, the OU defense allowed Baylor to shoot 54 percent for the game, including 10 of 21 from the behind the three-point line.

In fact, Baylor made more field goals in the opening 20 minutes (16) than the Sooners made in the entire game (15). Literally the only statistical category that Oklahoma won over Baylor on Monday night was in free-throw percentage, where the Sooners made 13 of 17 compared with 5 of 11 by the Bears.

Baylor outrebounded Oklahoma 42-34, overwhelmed the Sooners in the paint (38-18) created more assists (17 to 11), more steals (9 to 3), blocks (5 to 3) and fewer turnovers (12 to 14) and scored 20 points off of the 12 OU turnovers.

Oklahoma led 3-2 three and a half minutes into the game, but that was the last time the Sooners would lead in the game as Baylor dominated over the final 36 and a half minutes. The closest OU would get in the second half was 16 points, 40-24, at the 17:48 mark of the second stanza.

Kruger kept trying to find the right combination on the court for the Sooners, rotating players in and out of the lineup, but every button he pushed came up empty. You experience this at times throughout a long college basketball season, but this was definitely a bad loss for OU.

For Baylor, it was their fifth consecutive victory, which improved the Bears’ overall record to 14-6 and 5-2 in the Big 12. The Sooners are now 15-6 for the season and dropped to 3-5 in the conference.

Senior guard Makai Mason led Baylor with 12 points, one of three Bear starters who reached double figures. Kristian Doolittle led the Sooners with a dozen points, and Miles Reynolds contributed 11 points off the bench.

Oklahoma uncharacteristically was very lethargic the entire game at both ends of the court, an apparent letdown from its dominating 31-point win over Vanderbilt on Saturday. You could argue that Vanderbilt doesn’t compare to Baylor in terms of team strength, but the Vols did take No. 1 ranked Tennessee to overtime a week ago before losing 88-83 in overtime .

This was without question Oklahoma’s worst performance of the season, and everyone in the Sooner lineup can take credit for it. Everything the Sooners attempted seemed doomed for failure, while Baylor may have delivered its most balanced team effort of the 2018-19 season.

Oklahoma now must go on the road for a game on Saturday at West Virginia, currently the cellar-dweller in the Big 12 with just one win against six losses in conference play and 9-11 overall. The way the Sooners performed at home against Baylor, however, they won’t win at West Virginia, let alone any of their 10 remaining Big 12 games.

And to think that this OU team was ranked as high as No. 19 in the nation just a couple of weeks ago.