OU basketball suffers ultimate gut-punch, collapse as skid moves to four games

A 24 seconds no OU basketball fan is going to forget for a long time. And not for the good reason. A monumental collapse that has everybody wondering what is going on.

OU was up 79-74 with 24 seconds left only to lose 82-79 to visiting LSU on Saturday evening at the Lloyd Noble Center.

You have to make the smart basketball plays, and OU failed when it mattered most. The Sooners allowed a four-point play out of a timeout to trim the lead to 79-78.

Then Jalon Moore was caught in the corner and turned the ball over. LSU was able to convert and get an and-1 on top of it.

It was 81-79 with eight seconds left. Freshman Jeremiah Fears drove the length of the court but missed a tough jumper in the lane.

Game. Set. Match. How?

This is the one that stings, period. You cannot lose at home to LSU. And you definitely cannot lose in the manner in which the Sooners did.

OU had a 13-point lead multiple times in the second half but couldn’t put the Tigers away. It didn’t matter that LSU missed 13 free throws, negated a bit by the Tigers draining 11 3-pointers.

It takes away a gutsy effort by OU in the final seven minutes. After giving up the lead and trailing 63-59, OU responded like you’re supposed to do.

The Jalon Moore free throws to make it 79-74 should have been enough. But on this night, they simply weren’t.

Questions galore for head coach Porter Moser. His future and where this team goes the rest of this season.

Moore had 14 points. Jeremiah Fears scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, and Duke Miles added 12 points.

Moser trying to reconcile it all

“We were up five, to take you back. They call timeout. we’re in defensively called a ‘no jump situation.’ No matter what, we’re not jumping. Not contesting the shot, on a drive. It’s a no jump situation, and he jumped. Fouled a 3-point shooter. We fouled four 3-point shooters. That’s just mental.

“On the last sequence, we’re up one and have one timeout. We literally went over what we call it’s our bypass shooter against the press. Flash Jalon and cut, cut. Cut sideline, cut middle, have three options. I was holding the timeout in case we got in trouble. We got the ball inbounds. Then the three of them stood. Jalon got trapped. Duke, Fears and Dayton were almost on top of each other. We didn’t cut, cut, cut. I’ll take it. We have to have some leadership and understanding down the stretch. Really talked about bypass shooter the last couple of days, late game. Jalon knew we had a timeout. We either have to take it, it was our jump ball and had one timeout. Can just take it, spread people out. We just kind of hot potato’d it.

“For us being disorganized? That’s on me. We talked about it the last two days. Eventually, that’s what I told everybody, if right there, we got it in, Jalon was 8-for-8 from the foul line. We have to cut, cut and get space to have passing options. We literally just froze and stood. Three guys almost on top of each other just looking at Jalon.

“Very, very tough loss. My faith has always been the foundation. Sometimes you don’t know why the good Lord puts you in these positions. The only thing I know how to do is to pour into these young men and teach them and show them how to be better and close out these tough games. You get in a rut like that, you almost play not to lose. We did some things. The fouling of four 3-point shooters. we missed a layup up seven, like a point-blank earlier. It was a six-point swing. We missed the layup, and we fouled a 3-point shooter.

Up next

Here comes the next gauntlet. Five straight games against ranked opponents, at least as of this week. OU (16-9, 3-9) heads to Gainesville to take on Florida. The Gators are easily one of the best teams in the country and would be a No. 1 seed if the tournament began now. OU is finally the early game, too, during the mid-week, tipping off at 6 p.m. Tuesday.