OU basketball blitzed early by Tennessee, never bounces back

It was a week of opportunity for OU basketball. Well, it definitely wasn’t seized. And as you start to evaluate the state of the SEC right now? Those preseason expectations are starting to become realized.

OU looks gassed, mentally and physically. And going against two top-five teams in one week ended as bad as anybody could have hoped.

OU was slow coming out of the blocks, and Tennessee made it pay time and time again. An absolute dominant road performance by the Vols, whipping the Sooners 70-52 on Saturday at the Lloyd Noble Center.

The Sooners are now 3-7 in SEC play.

You wanted to at least be competitive against No. 1 Auburn and the No. 4 Vols, and Porter Moser and crew simply cannot say that this week.

A 28-point road loss to the Tigers was supposed to be wiped out by an inspiring performance back home. Except that never came.

“I thought what we’ve done earlier in the year that we’re not doing right now is emotionally and physically fighting through hard times,” Moser said. “When things have gotten hard, emotionally as much as physically, they were knocking down shots. I think they knocked down their first five. We were really ramped up to play.

“We’ve gone on runs in this building and gotten the energy in this building going. We could never get any energy going, couldn’t cause that because we couldn’t get a string of made shots. We know they’re elite defensively, and they are. I thought we had some looks, some layups. We just couldn’t string a run the whole night.”

The Vols shooting had a lot to do with that. At one point, Tennessee was 14-of-16 shooting and a perfect 5-of-5 from 3-point territory.

Tennessee took a 20-point lead into halftime and cruised the rest of the way. OU never got closer than 15 points in the second half and trailed by as many as 28 points.

Game No. 23 OU Takeaways

*The story going into the game was about the availability of freshman guard Jeremiah Fears. Battling a thigh bruise, Fears did play, did start. But it really didn’t matter. The game never got to a competitive point in the second half where we could see what Fears had.

He finished with eight points, one assist and two steals.

“We took our mandatory day off, was the day after,” Moser told SoonerScoop. “We came Thursday and got treatment. It was his thigh. Didn’t go Thursday. Didn’t go Friday. Did some shooting, was stretching. We really, truly didn’t know until this morning because it was an early game. So we went through the process of getting loose. He said he felt so much better, wanted to go. So that was our game-time decision.

“But we truly — if it’s a later game, you have a shoot around, you can see how he did in the shootaround. But all we could go by is that. He didn’t have any reps the last two days. I thought he gutted it out and really tried to be there for his teammates to play today in this big game.”

*Jalon Moore had 12 points but is having to work so hard to just get that 12 nowadays. The size discrepancy has really been shining through in recent weeks. He also had four rebounds.

*Even when OU did things good, like cause four straight turnovers for Tennessee in the first half, the Sooners never scored during that stretch. Rebounds, assists, all of it in favor of the Vols. Pure domination.

Up next

The stretch ends, finally. OU entered with a five-game stretch against five ranked teams. The Sooners (16-7, 3-7) are now at game No. 5, at Missouri on Wednesday night. The Tigers have been one of the surprise teams in the nation and haven’t slowed down during league play.