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OU basketball falls just short in controversial fashion at Ole Miss, 87-84

Bob Przybyloby:Bob Przybylo•03/01/25•

BPrzybylo

Porter Moser42
OU head coach Porter Moser. (Petre Thomas - Imagn Images)

How do you summarize the week for OU basketball? About 40 minutes (twice) of strong effort, making plays, punching back.

But in the end? Two losses. Two losses by a combined four points. Down Jalon Moore for almost the whole second half, the Sooners lost another heartbreaker, 87-84, at Ole Miss on Saturday afternoon.

Sean Pedulla hit a three-pointer to give Ole Miss an 85-84 lead when Porter Moser called timeout with 14 seconds left.

Freshman Dayton Forsythe was bumped attempting to drive baseline, but no foul was called. Instead, the play resulted in a turnover with 6.1 seconds left.

Freshman Jeremiah Fears tried to foul on the ensuing Ole Miss inbounds pass. But it wasn’t called, initially, so he grabbed the jersey. It was ruled a flagrant with just under 4 seconds left, eliminating any real chance for OU to walk away with the victory.

It takes away a career outing from Forsythe, who nothing short of amazing for the Sooners. He scored 23 of his 25 points in the second half, shattering his career high. He shot 7-for-9 from the field, connecting on four 3-pointers and made all seven of his free throws.

Though Fears didn’t have anything close to a good shooting game (4-14), he made it work. Fears ended with 13 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

Duke Miles had 15 points, five assists and four rebounds, including a huge bucket to give OU an 84-82 advantage.

OU trailed 30-19 in the first half but cut the margin down to 39-38 at halftime. Star Jalon Moore had just two points at halftime. He played the initial minutes of the second half before never seeing the court again.

Moser confirmed in a postgame radio interview it was a knee injury for Moore, couldn’t put any weight on it.

OU was regarded as one of the Last Four In heading into the day. There were some bad losses across the nation with Nebraska losing at home to Minnesota. Arkansas got obliterated at one-win South Carolina. A real chance for OU to give itself a little wiggle room, but it was not to be.

Instead, it’s an 83-82 loss to Kentucky and a 87-84 loss to the Rebels.

Up next

Time for senior night. And honestly? The best ranked win of the season is on the table. Missouri has surpassed all expectations this season and is ranked No. 14 going into a showdown at Vanderbilt on Saturday. The Tigers took care of OU in Columbia last month. At 17-12, yep, you know this is as big of a must-win as possible for the Sooners. Set for 7 p.m. Wednesday.

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