Porter Moser calls on players to step up around Grant Sherfield

Oklahoma suffered their third loss of the season Saturday, falling to No. 9 ranked Arkansas 88-78. The Sooners may have lost, but senior guard Grant Sherfield led the team in points with 23, his third straight 20-plus point outing of the season. Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser spoke about the play of Sherfield and freshman Milos Uzan following their loss to the Razorbacks.

“I thought Grant was a guy that was competing in that atmosphere, I thought Los did, we gotta have more guys that need to come with it,” Moser said. “We didn’t get catches, you put a lot of pressure when you’re not getting catches, that’s why we’re going with multiple guards, but we didn’t get catches.”

The Sooners had a solid day shooting from the field, but turnovers were the glaring issue in their loss, turning the ball over 15 times to Arkansas comprised of 10 steals and five blocked shots by the Razorbacks on the defensive side of the ball.

“So much credit to them, their length and athletic ability and their effort, I thought those were all high on their part, I give them a ton of credit for that. But we had some guys that didn’t play as well as they’ve been playing, but I thought Grant competed in that atmosphere, I thought Los competed in that atmosphere,” Moser said.

Big-time scoring outings are the norm for Sherfield, but the true freshman Uzan stepped up big against Arkansas, scoring a career-high 15 points and ending the night as the Sooners’ second-leading scorer. It’s just the third double-digit scoring day of his young career, but his fourth outing with five assists, also making an impact as a playmaker.

The play of Sherfield and Uzan, a rookie and a veteran, was promising and great to see if you’re a Sooner fan. But at the end of the day, turning the ball over as much as Oklahoma did on Saturday will always make it challenging to win, especially starting the second half with five turnovers in the first seven minutes.

“When teams take you out of it, I thought we were doing good stuff in the first half, just in the second half it just seemed like when we had those turnover, turnover, turnover, you could just feel them just get ramped up feeding off those turnovers,” Moser explained. “And to me that first five minutes of the second half, that kind of dictated so much of it, because they just ramped it up feeding off those turnovers.”

The Sooners will get a week of rest before their next matchup and will be looking to bounce back on Saturday when they take on Central Arkansas at home.