The Horns notched their first SEC victory and continued their streak of Red River Rivalry dominance.
The winless streak to open SEC play is over for the Texas Longhorns but continues for the Oklahoma Sooners as head coach Rodney Terry’s team led by as many as 23 points in Wednesday’s 77-73 victory at the Lloyd Noble Center before holding off a late rally attempt by the Sooners.
The eighth straight victory in the Red River Rivalry for the Horns is also the sixth straight in Norman and was led by a team-high 26 points by Texas junior guard Jordan Pope, who scored 19 points in the second half, including 13 straight points to hold off the furious rally by Oklahoma.
After the Longhorns took a 53-30 lead with 16:15 remaining in the second half thanks to a three by senior wing Tramon Mark, the Sooners went on a 23-4 run with the help of eight free throws and six layups to cut the deficit to three points at the 7:45 mark, Pope hit a jumper to slow the home teams momentum before making three trips to the free-throw line, connecting on other jumper and getting into the paint for a layup.
The game still wasn’t decided, however, as a turnover by Pope with Texas leading 75-68 after a jumper by freshman guard Tre Johnson with 1:19 left produced a three by Oklahoma. Pope gave the ball away again following a timeout by Terry that the Sooners turned into a fast-break dunk five seconds later. But Texas responded quickly as senior forward Arthur Kaluma found Mark for a transition layup two seconds later.
The effective finish for the Horns helped negate big performances by Sooners standouts Jalon Moore and Jeremiah Fears.
Even by the high standards of Moore, the senior forward who transferred from SMU, scoring a game-high 29 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the floor and 8-of-9 shooting from the free-throw line was an extremely efficient performance.
The only other player to score in double digits for Oklahoma was Fears, the freshman guard who poured in 20 points, but also turned the ball over six times in a game that turned sloppy for both teams at times — the Sooners turned it over 18 times at a rate of 25.7 percent and the Longhorns gave the basketball away 15 times at a rate of 21.1 percent.
For Texas, though, a sloppy win is a win nonetheless, counting as the first Quad 1 victory for the Horns this season and boosting the team’s NCAA Tournament odds by nearly 20 percent, according to BartTorvik.com.
It was also much-needed with a trip to Gainesville to face No. 5 Florida looming on Saturday, a game in which Texas has a win probability of just 16 percent.