Xzayvier Brown returned to the lineup, and the Oklahoma men rebounded from an embarrassing season-opening loss earlier in the week with an 84-57 win over Mississippi Valley State on Friday night.
Derrion Reid and newcomer B.J. Edwards, a transfer from SMU, combined for 35 points and led a balanced scoring night for the Oklahoma offense, with 11 different Sooners scoring at least two points. Edwards had a team-high 18 points, including four of six from behind the three-point line. Villanova transfer Duke Brennan and Dayton Forsythe both contributed nine points.
Brown, Oklahoma's leading returning scorer, had just five points in his first game this season after missing the opener on Monday with a lower-body injury. Brown averaged 15.4 points per game last season.
Oklahoma held MSV to 29.6% shooting in the opening 30 minutes. The Delta Devils made just eight of their 27 first-half field-goal attempts, which enabled the Sooners to open up a 22-8 advantage, which they stretched to a 36-16 margin right before the half.
Mississippi Valley State scored the first six points of the second half to cut into the deficit, but the Sooners went on an 11-4 run to widen the margin back out to 20 points and slowly grew the lead out further from there. Oklahoma led by as many as 33 points with just under two minutes to go. MVS forward Tymias Williams led all scorers in the game with 19 points.
Oklahoma shot 54.8% in the second half (17-for-31), including 7-of-17 from three-point range. Eleven of the 13 Sooners who saw action in the game scored, including 40 points from the bench.
Friday's contest served as a step back in time, moving over to McCasland Field House from the Lloyd Noble Center, the official home of Oklahoma men's and women's basketball and the site of Monday's season opener. McCasland served as the home of Sooner basketball from 1928 to 1974, when it was known as OU Field House. Oklahoma has played a game at McCasland Field House four times in six seasons under head coach Porter Moser. The Sooners are a perfect 4-0 in those games.
The Sooners recorded 25 assists in Friday's game. That is the most in a game by an Oklahoma team since they finished with 26 in a 2023 game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. That game was also played at McCasland Field House. Oklahoma won the battle of the boards (42-32), including pulling down 17 offensive rebounds that led to 17 second-chance points.
Here are three takeaways from the Sooners' first win of the new season:
1. Sooners rain 3s, scoring 39 points from deep
Oklahoma began the game making just three of its first 18 three-point shots (16.7%) before finding the range to make 10 of its next 22 and finish 13-for-40 for the game (32.5%). Edwards made four of his six deep shots, and Forsythe drained three of five three balls.
2. Oklahoma bench scores half of the Sooners' point total
The Sooner reserves scored 43 points off the bench, more than half of Oklahoma's winning total, outscoring the starters 43-41. Edwards and Forsythe contributed 27 of the bench points, and true freshman Quincey Wadley, considered OU's highest-rated recruit since Trae Young in 2017, added eight more.
3. Every win is important, but this one has to be put in perspective
This was an important win from the standpoint of getting in the win column for the first time in the new season and helping ease some of the bruised emotions from Monday's painful loss to East Texas A&M, but it was also tempered by the fact that the Delta Devils of Mississippi Valley State are ranked 365th out of 365 Division I teams in the KenPom rankings. By comparison, East Texas A&M ranks 221st and Oklahoma 54th.
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