OU basketball bounces back, takes down WVU
There, you can see some OU basketball fans walking back from that ledge just a bit. It took one play, but once it happened, the Sooners woke up.
A spurt by Jalon Moore got OU rolling in the first half, and Oklahoma never looked back. OU slowly separated against visiting West Virginia, winning comfortably 77-63 on Wednesday night at the Lloyd Noble Center.
One play can wake up an arena, and Moore’s dunk did just that at LNC. OU trailed 18-14 when Moore brought the house down. The Sooners turned an 18-12 deficit in the first half into a 29-25 advantage at halftime.
“He’s been doing that all year. He got in the flow,” Moser said. “We put Luke in and we were setting the ball screen with him and we kind of changed that up and that’s when he got the dunk. And we got two or three things out of that.
“He got deflections. He got rebounds. Got a big offensive rebound. He’s just all over. He’s a weapon against the zone. We threw that lob against them. So just his energy was contagious and I thought he did a nice job with that. Really helped us.”
Then they went to work. Looked more cohesive, executed better. Four became eight then it became 12, and the two-game losing streak became a thing of the past.
The Sooners simply took care of the glass in this one, both offensively and defensively. WVU became one-and-done throughout the second half. Final tally was a 33-19 edge for Moser’s group, including a 10-3 edge offensively.
“West Virginia’s always known how physical rebounding they are,” Moser said. “But we were plus-14 on the glass, so that was … I thought we were really physical on our box-outs, you know we gave up three offensive rebounds — and I bet you those were early. I bet you those were early. So that was big for us to be able to rebound them. You’ve got to do that in this league every night.”
Not just a bounce back game for OU, but also for Rivaldo Soares. After a rough patch on the road, he responded with 13 points off the bench. He looked like that experienced player that Porter Moser wanted so badly for this squad.
Moore finished with a team-high 16 points and five rebounds.
Game 17 Takeaways
*Otega Oweh just kept fighting. He shot 0 for 8 from the field in the first half but never got discouraged. He finally found some buckets in the second half. Oweh pitched in with 12 points, 10 rebounds and five steals. That’s the difference in his maturity. A bad shot, bad decision doesn’t linger with Oweh. He gets right back at it.
“It’s the biggest thing we just pointed out as well,” Moser said. “He started out 0-for-8. And then he ended 5-of-16. So he’s five for his last eight. But he still had 10 rebounds and five steals.
“That’s not having your offense dictate your defense when you started out 0-of-8. Just told him to keep going strong. Get to that foul line. But you got to keep defending. You gotta be a relentless defender. Five steals. 10 rebounds. He was getting it done on that end.”
*Just another solid night by Milos Uzan running the team. He scored seven of his eight points in the first half. But his big thing was running the show. He had five assists. Uzan has proven to be a calming presence with the ball in his hands. Javian McCollum also added five assists to go with 13 points.
Up next
No. 15 OU (14-3 overall, 2-2 in Big 12) heads to Cincinnati at Noon on Saturday. It will be the first-ever Big 12 conference basketball game between the two schools. The Bearcats are proving to be a worthwhile addition. UC already has ranked conference wins at BYU and vs. TCU. Cincinnati enters at 13-4 overall, 2-2 in conference play.
