Oklahoma basketball: Sooners hold on late for 7th straight win over West Virginia
By Chip Rouse
It was nip and tuck in the final couple of minutes, but the men’s Oklahoma basketball did just enough to pull out a 77-76 win over West Virginia on Saturday.
The Sooners, who seemingly don’t know how to play anything but close encounters since beginning the Big 12 portion of the schedule, never trailed in the game and recorded their seventh straight win over Bob Huggins’ and West Virginia.
Oklahoma held a two point advantage, 31-29 at halftime and gradually widened the gap to nine points over the first seven minutes of the second half. West Virginia refused to fold, however, and crawled back to within three points on a three-pointer by Emmitt Matthews Jr with 6:38 to go that made the score 64-61.
A dunk by Matthews with three and a half minutes remaining brought the Mountaineers within one at 70-69, and a free throw by Tre Mitchell at the 1:43 mark brought West Virginia even with the Sooners at 70-all for the first time since there were four minutes to go in the first half.
Joe Toussaint missed a pair of free throws with just over a minute left that would have given West Virginia its first lead of the game. Grant Sherfield missed a jumper at the other end of the floor for Oklahoma, but Jalen Hill gathered in the offensive rebound, was fouled, and sunk both foul shots to put the Sooners up 72-70.
A series of OU free throws in the final 30 seconds enabled the Sooners to close it out from there and secure their second Big 12 victory against three losses and first conference win at home. Oklahoma had lost its first two Big 12 home games, to Texas and Iowa State, by a combined four points.
The Sooners did not make a field goal in the final 6:41 of the game, but made 11 of 14 free throws that proved to be the difference in the game.
Both teams shot better than 50 percent. The Sooners shot 55.6 percent from the field; West Virginia was slightly better at 57.4 percent.
Sherfield led the way for the Sooners with 22 points, 15 in the second half. It was Sherfield’s eighth 20-point game of the season. Jalen Hill had 14 points for the Sooners and true freshman Milos Uzan followed up his 11-point performance earlier in the week with another 11-point effort against the Mountaineers. He also led OU with nine rebounds.
Mitchell was one of three West Virginia players to score in double figures, finishing with a team-high 16.
The Sooners improve to 11-6 for the season. West Virginia suffered its fifth consecutive conference loss. The Mountaineers came into the conference season with a 10-2 overall record.
Oklahoma’s next outing in an in-state affair as the Sooners head to Stillwater and Bedlam against Oklahoma State.