Oklahoma is starting to put the college basketball world on notice in a major way.
Just three days after knocking off a top-10 team in Kansas at the Lloyd Noble Center, the Sooners did it again. This time, on the road against No. 5 Texas at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin.
“Just really happy for a lot of the guys who individually are doing a great job,” Lon Kruger said after the game. “They are playing with confidence. Again, a string of top ten teams here so you need to be playing with confidence. And certainly happy for the guys to get another win out on the road.”
After leading for the entirety of the second half, the game tightened up significantly late with the Longhorns narrowing the gap on several occasions and getting it down to one in the final moments. But, despite not hitting a field goal for the final several minutes of the game, Oklahoma found way to make the plays necessary to lock down the big win.
Instrumental in the victory were two very key plays made by Jalen Hill, the first being the decision to foul Texas’ Andrew Jones with the just over five seconds remaining and the Longhorns down by three. The other came on the ensuing inbound, for after Hill’s pass was deflected right back at him, he alertly made sure to get his feet back in-bounds before grabbing the basketball to take the foul. Those two plays were highly-important to the Sooners hanging on late.
“Jalen’s instincts are great,” Kruger said. “He’s alert, he knows all five positions, he can guard all five, he moves without the ball well, he’s a very good rebounder. So yeah, he’s got a lot of poise, a lot of composure. He’s played a lot of basketball in his life and great to see him step in there and make a good play.”
Once again, Oklahoma’s depth was a huge help in this game – specifically the play of Umoja Gibson, Victor Iwaukor and Hill off the bench. Gibson had 12 points in his 32 minutes, getting more playing time than everyone other than Austin Reaves.
“Umoja was great,” Kruger said. “He had some shots that he’s going to kick himself for not going down but he works so hard in preparation. You know anyone that works that hard a coach has confidence in. And all of our guys work hard, but they have a little more confidence, all coaches do, when you know how much they’ve invested. How much they’ve prepared. How ready they are.”
The bench as a whole continues to be such a luxury for the Sooners, with the team not losing much at all when some of the starters get their rest at different stretches of the game.
“It’s huge, the more players you have that can contribute is better,” Austin Reaves said after the game. “We have a deep team. We have a lot of guys that can make a lot of plays and we trust them doing that. It’s really big to have a bench like that and they just got to continue doing what they’re doing right now.”
Oklahoma will now look for an unprecedented third straight top-10 win when they host No. 9 Alabama at the Lloyd Noble Center on Saturday as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
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