Oklahoma basketball: Takeaways as Sooner men sink to a new low

This Oklahoma basketball game was over from the very beginning — as several have gone lately — and the Sooners postseason might have gone right with it.

West Virginia (14-9, 3-7) jumped out to an 11-point lead in the first 10 minutes, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The Mountaineers outscored the listless Sooners 31 to 8 over the final nine minutes of the first half and took a 56-30 lead to the locker room at the half.

Oklahoma scored the first four points of the second half, but that’s went the West Virginia offense kicked into gear again and didn’t let up until it reached 93 points and a 32-point beatdown of the Sooners. The West Virginia win avenged the one-point, 77-76 Oklahoma win earlier in the season and snapped a seven-game Sooner win streak against the Mountaineers.

Oklahoma had no answer for the taller, longer and more physical Mountaineers who got big shot after big shot out of their veteran lineup. Things were going so right for West Virginia in the game that the Mountaineers played 13 players and got 36 points from the reserves.

"“We’ve got to be better,” lamented Porter Moser after the game. No kidding!“That kid (Erik Stevenson of West Virginia) played a great game. I thought they played so hard defensively. They’re older, physical guys. And we didn’t handle it well.”"

This had become an ugly and unacceptable pattern in the performance of the OU men in recent games. When things start getting away from the Sooners, they start going downhill very quickly.

The day before the West Virginia game, Moser told reporters, We’ve got to defend. You’ve got to play possession by possession. We can’t get down and then stay down.”

Erik Stevenson led the Mountaineers with a game- and career-high 34 points, including 6 of 11 from three-point range.  Grant Sherfield led the Sooners with 16 points and reserve Joe Bamisile contributed 11. No other Sooner reached double figures.

The last 30 minutes of the game at West Virginia were about as bad as things can get for this Sooner team. And the upcoming schedule offers absolutely no relief with games at Baylor this upcoming Wednesday followed by a home game against Kansas and back-to-back road games at Kansas State and Texas.

Pending a miracle turnaround, chances for the Oklahoma men to play on beyond the first week in March have all but vanished.

Three takeaways that help tell the story of another devastating OU performance

• The Sooners were absolutely mauled in the paint area. West Virginia scored 36 points in the paint and were able to get to the rim virtually any time it wanted. Oklahoma’ two big men were saddled with foul trouble and played only 25 minutes combined.
• West Virginia converted 16 Oklahoma turnovers into 24 points. The Mountaineers also had 18 fast-break points. The Mountaineers blocked nine Oklahoma shots, underscoring their size and length advantage over the Sooners and the absence of the two OU big men for large portions of the game.
• Oklahoma was whistled for 26 personal fouls and had three players foul out of the game. West Virginia was awarded 31 foul shot and converted those into 24 points.