FORT WORTH, Texas — With 21 seconds left in the game, Kristian Doolittle inbounded the ball to Jamal Bieniemy to set the stage for Austin Reaves.
Taking the ball at half court Reaves took on a defender one-on-one to the right side. Sizing him up, he faked his patented dribble-drive and added a twist—stepping back and nailing an 18-foot fadeaway to cap-off a 17-point second-half comeback.
Reaves flexed. Then fake slashed his throat and said, “game over,” to the TCU crowd, who was in shock and awe at Schollmaier Arena while Kristian Doolittle hounded him from behind.
With a half a second left, Oklahoma had its first lead of the game at 78-76, the only one the Sooners needed.
“For him (Coach Kruger) to have the confidence in me as well as the players, that just shows a lot to me so I just had the confidence to make the shot,” Reaves said postgame.
The Sooners, down 18-points at halftime, clawed their way back over the last 20 minutes to give Oklahoma the largest halftime comeback win on the road in Big 12 history.
Reaves nearly singlehandedly made the comeback possible with his career-high 41-points, becoming the first Sooner since Trae Young on Jan. 30, 2018 against Baylor to score 40+ in a win.
A surprise to everyone but Reaves himself.
“I’ve been playing basketball for a long time, all the hard work I put in, it paid off tonight,” Reaves told reporters postgame.
Reaves was a methodical assassin who did not have any regard for his body so long as the ball found the bottom of the basket.
Taking 16 trips to the foul line, Reaves knocked down 15 of the attempts. The majority of the 26 points Reaves chalked up came from the paint as he slashed his way through defenders and cut through the trees to get the ball to the rim.
“He put us on his back today,” Doolittle said postgame. “We needed all 41 of his points.”
Although Reaves’ points are the talk of the town, his assists allowed the Sooners to him a chance to call ‘game’.
Dishing to Doolittle and Brady Manek in the closing moments, Reaves drew the Horned Frogs defense enough to give his teammates wide-open looks to trim from 10 points at the 3:26 mark to tied at 76 with 55 seconds left.
The win not only gives Reaves a huge confidence boost, but it gives the entire squad a sense of relief.
“(It’s) very relieving,” Doolittle said postgame. “Finishing the season on a strong note, we gotta see how the rankings shake out and see what position we’re in and go from there.”
With the win, Oklahoma is slated as the 3-seed in the Big 12 Tournament and is unofficially locked into the NCAA Tournament. They pick up post-season play on Thursday in Kansas City at the Sprint Center to play 6-seed West Virginia at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN or ESPN2.
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