Oklahoma basketball secured a huge road victory and improved to 2-0 in Big 12 play with a 72-62 triumph over Red River rival Texas on Wednesday night.
The Sooners (11-3, 2-0) snapped a four-game losing streak at Texas, taking advantage of a poor shooting night by the Longhorns and another slow start that had OU trailing by nine points midway through the opening half.
Here is a breakdown of what you need to takeaway from this game:
Doolittle doing it all
Senior Kristian Doolittle led the way for the Sooners, scoring a game-high 20 points and grabbling eight rebounds. Doolittle shot 50 percent from the floor and was perfect on his two three-ball attempts. Jamaal Bieniemy and Austin Reaves also reached double figures for OU, adding 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Doolittle is Oklahoma’s leading scorer on the season, averaging 17.3 points a game. His 22-point performance at Texas was the third time this season that he scored at least 20 points, He has a career-high 28 points earlier this season in the Sooners’ win over North Texas.
Freshman Harmon steals, seals the game late
At the 10-minute mark in the second half, Oklahoma true freshman De’Vion Harmon stole the ball from Courtney Ramey of Texas, drove to the other end and laid the ball in to break a 48-all tie and spark the Sooners on their game-winning run. A couple of minutes later, Harmon stole the ball again and finished with a lay-up to extend the OU lead to five points.
Harmon would add five more points before all was said and done, scoring all nine of his points in the final 10-minutes of the game.
Poor three-point shooting doomed the Longhorns
Texas misfired often from three-point range, hitting just eight of 29 from behind the arc. The Longhorns three-point misses late in the contest allowed Oklahoma to pull away and secure the victory. Texas leading scorer, Matt Coleman III, who shoots 44 percent from the three-point line, missed all five of his three-balls, and teammate Jose Febres, who leads the Longhorns in made three-pointers, was just two for nine from downtown.
OU led at halftime for just fifth time all season
Austin Reaves knockdown three-point shot as the first-half buzzer sounded turned a 33-32 Texas advantage into a 34-33 Oklahoma advantage at the intermission. It was only the fifth time all season that the Sooners have gone to the locker room at halftime with the lead.
OU also outscored the Longhorns in the second 20 minutes, 38-29. Both teams led in the game for 18 minutes.
Sooners almost shoot better from field than free-throw line
Coming into the game with Texas, Oklahoma was shooting close to 80 percent from the charity stripe, good enough for seventh best in the country. It is a good thing that didn’t need to rely on firee throws in this game, however. The Sooners were just 10 of 18 from the free-throw line, and uncharacteristic performance from the team that leads the Big 12 in that category.
Next up
OU travels to Ames, Iowa, on Saturday for a second-straight road assignment, this time at Iowa State. The Sooners have lost their last eight games at Iowa State.