Oklahoma basketball: Sooners sleepwalk through Bedlam sweep

In a game they needed to have for their NCAA Tournament resume, the Oklahoma basketball men came out flat and remained that way, and the visitors from Oklahoma State took full advantage for a Bedlam series sweep.

Oklahoma State took the lead right after the opening tip, jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and never trailed the entire game in a 71-61 victory and a sweep of the Bedlam regular-season series for the second time in the last two seasons.

The Sooners were hoping that Saturday’s convincing win over the second-ranked team in the country would spark a turnaround in their season. Instead, the only turnaround that surfaced in Wednesday night’s disappointing performance against Oklahoma State was a complete reversal of fortune from Saturday’s jubilant outcome.

From the outset against their in-state rival, the Sooners appeared completely overmatched. The length and athleticism of Oklahoma State was too much for Oklahoma to handle.

While the Cowboys were getting easy baskets in the paint, the Sooners couldn’t buy a basket. Their offensive struggles were further compounded by being forced to shoot contested jump shots and shots from the perimeter because of OSU’s defensive toughness and size advantage in the front court.

Oklahoma State placed four players in double figures, led by a pair of 18-point performances from the two Cowboy bigs, Kalib Boone and Moussa Cisse. Grant Sherfield was Oklahoma’s leading scorer with 14 points. Freshman Milos Uzan was the only other Sooner to reach double digits with 11.

The Sooners trailed by as many as 22 points in the second half after being down 42-28 at halftime. A 13-3 Oklahoma run late in the game made the score closer at the end but was not really indicative of how one-sided the game actually was.

“Just no answer for Boone and Cisse,” a visibly frustrated Porter Moser told reporters after the game.

The Sooners’ Jalen Hill had commented after OU’s 16-point loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater that a game like that “would never happen again as long as I’m here.”

Sorry to say, it happened again, and to the same opponent, on Wednesday night and before a capacity crowd at Lloyd Noble Center.

Oklahoma’s next game will be Saturday night at West Virginia. The Sooners and Mountaineers are tied for ninth place in the Big 12 standings with a 2-7 record. OU won the first game this seasonb in Norman 77-76.

Four major takeaways bad Bedlam beat for the Oklahoma Sooners

• Porter Moser has been pleading all season for greater attendance at Sooner home games. Well, nearly 12,00 were at Lloyd Noble Center for OU’s dominating 24-point win over No. 2 Alabama. A near-record crowd of 13,200, aided by free admission because of a lingering ice storm in the area, packed the LNC for Wednesday night’s game, only to witness one of OU’s worst performances of the season. It was the fourth largest crowd in the 48-year history of the Sooners’ home arena.
• Oklahoma, which leads the Big 12 in FG percentage, shot 34.8 percent for the game, its second lowest shooting percentage in 22 games this season. Oklahoma State, on the other hand, shot 43.3 percent for the game.
• Forty-four of Oklahoma State’s 71 points were scored in the paint. By contrast, OU scored 22 points in the paint.
• Oklahoma was outrebounded 42 to 32 and 14 to 6 on the offensive boards. The 14 offensive rebounds by Oklahoma State led to 13 second-chance points, more than the winning margin in the game.