WATCH: Jalen Hill throws down monster poster dunk as Oklahoma extends lead over Alabama
It was all Oklahoma in the first half of Saturday’s SEC/Big 12 Challenge game against Alabama, but the Crimson Tide came out of the locker room on fire. However, the Sooners adjusted quickly — and Jalen Hill got the Lloyd Noble Center crowd fired up with a huge poster dunk.
Hill caught a pass from CJ Noland and threw one down over Alabama forward Brandon Miller to extend the Oklahoma lead to 64-46. The Sooners shot nearly 70% from the field in the first half against the No. 2-ranked Crimson Tide and, after Alabama had a scoring outburst to start the second half, continued to score at a torrid pace after the break.
The lead got up to 20 points at one point.
Oklahoma — which entered play Saturday averaging 67 points per game — took a commanding 50-33 lead into halftime thanks to a great performance from Porter Moser’s high-powered offense. The Sooners got 18 points from Grant Sherfield and 13 points from Hill as they shot 67.9% from the floor. They also did great work on defense, holding the Crimson Tide to 33.3% shooting and just 3-of-10 from outside the three-point line.
Alabama coach Nate Oats knew the game wouldn’t be easy and said he expected a “dogfight” earlier in the week.
“This isn’t a game that you can just go on the road and not take care of business,” he said. “We’re playing for something too. So we’ve got both teams playing for different things and we’re both going to be motivated. We’ve got to know that we’re the No. 2 team in the country in the polls, and teams are going to bring their A game against us. We know that. We just saw it Wednesday night. We barely won the game, we probably should have lost that game. So we’ve got to play a lot better.”