Oklahoma basketball: Sooners bury Green Bay, await No. 9 North Carolina

Oklahoma expanded on a sixteen-point halftime lead with a 22-0 run in the second half on the way to a runaway 81-47 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The Sooners won their 10th game in a row to begin the 2023-24 season, tied for the seventh best start in program history with the 1990-91 team and the 2002-03 OU team, which advanced to the Final Four.

OU started out sluggish. leading 21-20 with just under six minutes remaining in the first half before exploding for a 15-0 run to close out the opening 20 minutes with a 36-20 advantage.

Reserve guard Rivaldo Soares led the Sooners scoring 13 points. Otega Oweh scored 12 and John Hugely IV added 11. Seven Sooners scored eight or more points. Oweh also recorded seven steals, the most by an OU player since 1999.

This was the sixth game this season that Oklahoma has scored 80 or more points. The Sooners are averaging 84.4 points a game, 22nd best nationally, and they are only allowing opponents 61.3, 14th best in Division I basketball.

Oklahoma has a 4-0 record against teams in the top 100 of the NCAA NET rankings, and it has won those games by an average of 11.0 points.

The Sooners will use this game as a tune up for what will be their biggest test of the nonconference schedule. On Wednesday, they will play No. 9 North Carolina in Charlotte as part of the Jumpman Invitational. Although the game is being played on a so-called neutral court, it will be very close to a Tar Heel home game, with just 140 miles separating Charlotte and the Chapel Hill campus.

Three takeaways from Oklahoma's victory over Wisconsin-Green Bay

• As it has in nearly every game this season, Oklahoma scored nearly half of its points (44) in close in the paint area.

• The Sooners blew open a 16-point halftime lead and at one point late in the second half had stretched the advantage to 40 points.

• Oklahoma showed off the depth of its roster, getting 39 points from the reserves.