Oklahoma basketball: Takeaways from a big Sooner holiday tournament win

The Oklahoma basketball men scored eight of the first 10 points in the contest and were never headed from there in a 79-67 victory over Iowa on Thanksgiving Day in the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego.

Junior forward Jalon Moore, a transfer from Georgia Tech, led the way for the Sooners as they improved to 5-0 and recorded their first win over a team from a major conference. Oklahoma moves on to play No. 23 USC for the tournament championship on Friday.

Four different Sooners scored in double figures. Siena transfer Javian McCollum added 14, his fourth game out of OU’s five reaching double digits. Otega Oweh, the team’s leading scorer on the season, contributed 13 and Sam Godwin had 11 points.

Oklahoma took a 36-24 advantage into halftime, and the two teams matched points in the second half as the Sooners maintained their 12-point halftime margin.

The Sooners evened their all-time record against the Hawkeyes of Iowa at three games apiece.

Iowa (3-2) will play Seton Hall (4-1) in the tournament consolation game on Friday. The Hall suffered its first loss of 2023-24, falling to USC 71-63 on Friday.

Three takeaways from OU’s win over Iowa

• Oklahoma continued to attack the basket down low. OU poured in 46 points in the paint. The Sooners have scored at least 38 points in the paint in four of their five games and over 40 in the last three.
• All nine Sooners who played in the game scored, The OU reserves contributed 29 of the Sooners’ 79 points. The Sooners are getting a strong contribution from their bench in every outing this season, averaging 35.8 points per game.
• The Sooners created a season-low eight turnovers against Iowa.