No. 25 Texas overwhelms No. 3 Oklahoma late for 76-63 win

The No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners faced a tough test Saturday on the road against the No. 25 Texas Longhorns, and they were unable to pass it, losing 76-63 at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. He missed a wide-open three-pointer before Lammert made one to get Texas within 58-57 as the Longhorns’ run really got rolling.

Oklahoma is back inside the Top 5 nationally and in order to stay there heading into the post season, the Sooners have three games remaining. “It was to keep getting stops and take good shots”.

Isaiah Taylor led the Longhorns (19-10, 10-6 Big 12) with 18 points while Connor Lammert and Felix added 14 each. Center Prince Ibeh led both teams with 10 rebounds. Whatever Shaka Smart said in that timeout worked wonders because after that, the Longhorns scored 20 straight points and never looked back.

Maintaining the lead, Hield would score on jumper at the 7:33 mark before the cold spell set in. At West Virginia, we had several wide-open threes to start the first five minutes of that game and didn’t get any of them down. “The end was kind of a blur, quite frankly”.

“We didn’t have too many good possessions the last 4 or 5 minutes”, Kruger said.

Texas is 9-2 against the spread in its last 11 games. Well, Saturday’s game was the opposite of that, at least for the first 35 minutes.

Hield, the erstwhile Player of the Year frontrunner, scorched Texas for 23 points in the half on 8-of-12 shooting and looked like the best player in the college basketball. Ben Bentil scored 16 of his 28 points in the second half and Providence pulled away from DePaul for an 87-66 victory.

The shots finally fell early for Oklahoma. Taylor, Felix and Davis performance in the second half helped the team contend with Oklahoma.

While the Longhorns are no strangers to the NCAA Tournament, they seemed to have trouble in big games under Rick Barnes. When playing against a team with a winning record after 15 or more games, the Longhorns are 9-3 against the spread.

“We said we had to get two guys on (him) every time he touched the ball”, Smart said. There was not one big play that spurred us. “If I can do that, it just makes it easier on our guards to be able to drive and not have somebody under the rim”. 2-4, Roach Jr. 0-1, Mack 0-1, Taylor 0-2). That includes victories against No. 3 North Carolina, No. 10 West Virginia and No. 17 Iowa State…. Now the betting odds for the game have the Sooners favored by a point in what should be a close contest.

Texas, like Oklahoma State earlier in the week, figures to try to slow the Sooners down. OU entered the game ranking second nationally in 3-point field-goal percentage (43.1 percent) by hitting 286 of 663 shots from downtown. Hield didn’t break the Oklahoma scoring drought until making a 3-pointer in the final minute.

That’s what the Sooners are looking for – to be the offensive team they were in January, when they rose to No. 1 in the country as Hield, Cousins, Spangler and Jordan Woodard all were regular threats to knock down 3-pointers consistently.