Oklahoma basketball: Takeaways from crippling OT loss OU may come to regret
By Connor Pasby
It’s been a continuing trend for the men’s Oklahoma basketball team: Battling for 40 minutes (sometimes longer) and falling just short.
With an 80-78 overtime loss to Red River rival Texas (19-7, 8-5), Oklahoma (14-12, 4-9) now has lost six times this season in games determined by five points or less, with two of those losses coming in overtime.
The Sooners have been on the short end of the scoreboard in too many close games this season and that’s not going to benefit them come NCAA Tournament selection time.
Similar to last year’s Red River Showdown contest at the Lloyd Noble Center, it was a hard nose battle between the Sooners and the 20th-ranked Longhorns, with high energy and toughness displayed on both sides.
OU trailed 80-78 with four seconds left in overtime after a made and missed free throw by Texas guard Marcus Carr. Without any timeouts, Tanner Groves grabbed the rebound and got the ball to Elijah Harkless, who hurried to mid court before lofting a contested desperation heave that bounced off the top of the backboard ending the Sooners’ chances and casting further doubt on OU’s NCAA Tournament prospects.
Here are three takeaways from the first Texas season sweep of the Sooners since 2017-18:
Supporting cast shows up big time making up for Tanner Groves’ disappearance
Four Oklahoma starters scored 70 of the Sooners’ 78 total points on Tuesday night against Texas. Tanner Groves, OU’s leading scorer on the season, however. was held to just four points on four shot attempts. Had Groves managed just a couple more baskets, Oklahoma might have won this game. In two of his last three games, Groves averaged 21 points on 15 shot attempts. He had a similar low-scoring output in the earlier game with Texas this season, scoring three points on just one field-goal attempt.
Elijah Harkless led the Sooners’ scoring in Tuesday night’s game with 19 points along with a game-high five steals on the defensive end. Jordan Goldwire followed up a 20-point performance in OU’s loss at Kansas with 18 points against Texas. Umoja Gibson had 17 and Jalen Hill contributed 16.
Miserable three-point shooting may have been the difference in this one
Of Oklahoma’s 51 field-goal attempts in the game, 23 of them were from three-point range. Unfortunately, the Sooners made only five of their three-point shots, a miserable 21.7 percent. That is down 12 points from OU’s season average. If one of the18 misses against Texas had found the range, the outcome Tuesday night might have been different.
Gibson was the only Sooner that was able to find the range on the three-ball, draining four of his six three-pointers.
In the earlier game at Texas, the Sooners were equally miserable with the three-ball, making just one of 13 attempts.
Sooners are getting better, despite what their record indicates
Since the loss at Texas on Jan. 11, Oklahoma has lost 8 of its last 10 games. Four of those losses were by three or fewer points.
The Sooners are definitely playing better despite their record. They’re playing with more mental and physical toughness, and they are making better decisions with the ball. It’s just now showing up on the scoreboard.
“Right now, we’re all miserable,” head coach Porter Moser said in his postgame press conference following the Texas loss on Tuesday night. “But we have two choices. Keep fighting. This group has kept on fighting. This team is not dead. This team is playing its best basketball right now.”
Oklahoma may be playing better, but it is probably going to have to win at least three of its five final regular-season games to keep its NCAA Tournament chances alive. That begins with a road trip to Iowa State on Saturday.