Saturday’s Bedlam hardwood rivalry was as intense and gritty as any before it, and for most all of the Oklahoma basketball roster it was a first-time experience, but with an end result that is becoming far too frequent.
Oklahoma (13-10, 3-7) has dropped seven of its last eight games, including a 64-55 defeat to Oklahoma State (11-11, 4-6) in Stillwater. on Saturday
The Sooners were led by the veterans, Tanner Groves and Elijah Harkless. Groves scored 23 points with nine rebounds and shot 10 of 17 from the field. Harkless broke out of a recent slump and tallied 15 points, while shooting 6 of 12 from the field. However, the rest of the Sooner starters were sub-par through forty minutes.
The Groves-Harkless duo scored 24 of Oklahoma’s 24 first-half points, underscoring (no pun intended) a problem that would plague the Sooners for the entire game: limited contribution from the supporting cast.
ICYMI: Oklahoma State bullies OU late, beats the Sooners for the 4th straight time in #Bedlam basketball 64-55.
— Morgan Beard (@morganbeard) February 6, 2022
Here's some highlights + @kalibboone32 talking about the rivalry with "little brother" after the game:#OkState pic.twitter.com/vADZiaKS2D
Here are three takeaways from the Oklahoma loss in round one of Bedlam this season:
Turnovers haunt the Sooners, once again
If you’re getting tired of hearing this somewhat regular lament, imagine how head coach Porter Moser feels about it. In the Bedlam loss, the Sooners committed 17 turnovers and the Cowboys were able to capitalize off the OU miscues. For a handful of minutes, it was both teams committing turnovers, which was making Bedlam basketball hard to watch on a Saturday afternoon.
Senior guard Elijah Harkless was a huge boost for the Sooners on the offensive end, but he also had eight turnovers of his own.
“We had a bunch of bad possessions,” Porter Moser said in his postgame comments. “Either a turnover, missed shots, trying to do too much. We gotta continue to clear it up.”
The Sooners gave up the ball 11 times in the second half, which allowed the Cowboys to retain the lead all 20 minutes. The Groves-Harkless tandem tried to crawl Oklahoma back into the game, but the Sooners needed more contribution.
"“I thought we had in our mind what we wanted to do and I thought we did that. In the second half, we kind of went down that rabbit hole of trying to do high-degree difficulties.” Moser said."
The Sooner recent losing skid drags on
After the Bedlam loss Saturday, the Sooners have now dropped seven of their last eight games. Many would say that’s not ideal in the highly competitive Big 12. It was a miserable January for Oklahoma, but it looks like that skid may continue into February. The road will not get easier for OU, as the Sooners have all Top-25 teams for their next three games, starting with No. 14 Texas Tech Wednesday night in Norman.
According to Joe Lunardi, the ESPN “Bracketology,” expert, the Sooners were a 9-seed going into the Bedlam game, but that could change in the next few weeks.
Upcoming three-game stretch will determine the Sooners’ season
In January, we talked about the Sooners going through pivotal stretches against ranked teams, and the stretch upcoming could make or break Oklahoma’s season. The next three games are all against top-25 foes, and the Sooners are still upcoming trips to Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse, where OU has not won since 1993 and Texas Tech in Lubbock, which will be a giant challenge for Oklahoma.
These next three games will be a huge test for Oklahoma, especially after losing seven of its last eight, but at some point this team is going to break out of its current funk and upset another top-25 team (the Sooners have already beaten three top-15 teams this season). It all starts Wednesday night as the Oklahoma Sooners play host to the 14th-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders.