Longhorns look to continue recent success against No. 11 Oklahoma
Texas will look to build momentum off perhaps it biggest win of the season when it travels up I-35 to battle No. 11 Oklahoma on Tuesday in a key early Big 12 Conference clash at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma at 6 p.m. on ESPN.
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It’s the first of two regular-season games between the teams in the schools’ final campaign in the Big 12, the nation’s toughest basketball league. Texas has won the past five meetings in the series and the last four on the Sooners’ home court.
The Longhorns (13-5, 2-3 Big 12) begin a two-game road trip against ranked teams after a rousing 75-73 win over then-No. 9 Baylor at home on Saturday. Tyrese Hunter took the ball near midcourt, drove the lane and hit the game-winning layup as time expired for the final of his 21 points to lift Texas to the win and allow the Longhorns to snap a two-game losing streak.
“We have a package to where we talk about getting downhill with ‘x’ amount of time, whether that has to be to attack for a 3-pointer or to get downhill for a basket,” Longhorns’ coach Rodney Terry said. “In this case, we didn’t need a three, we needed to get downhill and get to a two.”
Dylan Disu added 19 points for the Longhorns, with Max Abmas hitting for 15 and Kadin Shedrick scoring 10 in the win, which gave Texas some respite after a tumultuous week.
“We had to come in and have a survivor’s type mentality,” Terry said. “It’s the mentality we’ve tried to have all year, and our guys did a great job of regrouping.”
The game between the Longhorns and Bears, the final scheduled in Austin between the long-time rivals as Texas moves to the Southeastern Conference in July, featured 21 lead changes and 10 ties, with neither team in front by more than eight points.
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Texas’ defense was the difference against the Bears, allowing Baylor just one field goal – a 3-pointer that tied the game at 73 with 5 seconds remaining immediately prior to Hunter’s decisive drive and basket. The Longhorns stayed unbeaten (7-0) against ranked teams in its two-year tenure at Moody Center, its new home arena.
But the win over a gritty Baylor team was not near enough to lift Texas back into the top 25. Seven Big 12 squads are listed in latest AP rankings, but the Longhorns are not among them.
The Sooners (15-3, 3-2 Big 12) have captured two straight games, including a slug-it-out 69-65 victory at Cincinnati on Saturday that was their first league road win of the season and lifted them four spots in the AP poll. Javian McCollum shrugged off a right ankle injury to lead Oklahoma with 16 points while Otega Oweh added 14 and John Hugley IV hit for 11 points.
The Sooners canned 16 of 18 free throws in the game with Rivaldo Soares hitting a pair from the charity stripe with six seconds left to ice the game for Oklahoma. The Sooners also forged a 41-34 edge on the glass and scored 17 second-chance points.
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“It was a gritty game,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said. “We made a bunch of big plays down the stretch, and so did they. A lot of things went into winning a game against a team that good. We stayed the course – that’s what I liked the most. We kept playing hard.”
