No. 1 Auburn overmatches Oklahoma

The Sooners lost to what is obviously the best college basketball team in the country right now.

John Reed-Imagn Images

The Oklahoma Sooners are certainly not the best college basketball team in the country, but Tuesday night's outcome does not mean OU is a bad basketball team.

The No. 1 Auburn Tigers smothered the Sooners 98-70 on Tuesday at Neville Arena for their 14th straight win. It was a showcase to Sooner Nation that there's a reason Auburn is the No. 1 team in the country, but it did not reveal anything new or worse about the Sooners, no matter how that score looks.

The Sooners are now over halfway through a streak of games against five ranked opponents in a row. They had already lost to then-No. 13 Texas A&M and beat then-No. 24 Vanderbilt last week.

This week is the peak of that treacherous mountain to get over, though. After going on the road to play No. 1 Auburn on Tuesday, OU will host No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday, giving the Sooners two top-5 opponents in the same week.

It's a week that cannot define the 2024-25 Sooners. However, they can be judged by their 3-6 record in the SEC, even though it's starting to be considered the best set of teams assembled in the same conference in decades.

Tuesday night against Auburn did not encapsulate this season, though. The Sooners led for only 36 seconds the entire game and never did beyond the 17:41 mark in the first half. The game was tied for only 1:18 total, as Auburn led for 37:52.

The Sooners were just flat out overmatched. And while being oversized already, Sam Godwin, the tallest player in OU's starting lineup, got his fourth foul within the first minute of the second half. He spent most of the game of the bench because of foul trouble.

The Tigers finished with 11 blocked shots and out-rebounded OU 38-28.

Freshman Dayton Forsythe came off the bench to lead the Sooners with 13 points. He entered the game averaging only 2.8.

Kobe Elvis was also impressive off the bench with 10 points.

The freshman usually getting the attention (and rightfully so), Jeremiah Fears, scored 10. He scored only two points off a pair of free throws in the second half, though, after the Tigers zoned in on him.

Leading scorer Jalon Moore also had 11, his lowest tally since also scoring 11 against Texas A&M on Jan. 8.

Next, the Sooners will host No. 4 Tennessee at 11 a.m. Saturday at Lloyd Noble Center. A win then, and Tuesday night will be completely forgotten.

Schedule

Schedule