The No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners guard – and potential National Basketball Association lottery pick – exploded for 39 points in Thursday’s win over Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals, and he’ll look to replicate that performance Friday night when the Sooners face the No. 9 West Virginia Mountaineers. Hield gave the Sooners a 35-29 lead at halftime and pushed that lead to 15 points midway through the second half. Buddy Hield would miss a layup on the other end and forced OU to foul with just under two seconds to play. The Sooners celebrated as if it were, storming the court, only for the call to be overturned upon review. The halfcourt shot Hield made against West Virginia in the Big 12 semifinals would have been a game victor, but he released it just late.
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Cal State Bakersfield, fresh off its monumental victory over New Mexico State to win the Western Athletic Conference championship Saturday night in Las Vegas, rushed back to Bakersfield to learn its NCAA Tournament dancing partner Sunday: The Oklahoma Sooners. Hield leads in points with 25.6 per game while Isaiah Cousins tops in assists with 4.6 points per game.
Oklahoma plays West Virginia in the semifinals Friday night.
Both teams went back and forth tit-for-tat for the entire 40 minutes, and Oklahoma wasn’t able to seal the victory until the dying seconds. He’s averaging 25 points per game (second-most in Division I) and is hitting his three-pointers at a 46.4 percent clip. They are led in scoring by senior center Aly Ahmed who posts 12.9 points 6.2 rebounds per game. James had a career-best 13 points, Ryan Spangler added 12 points and Jordan Woodard had 11 as they tried to make up for the absence of their star.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Everything unfolded in slow motion for West Virginia’s Jevon Carter.
The five-point trip gave the Sooners a 55-42 lead with just over 10 minutes remaining. However, if the Sooners were to make it all the way to the Final Four, they would find themselves in Houston – an atmosphere that could prove to be friendly to Oklahoma.
Cousins began a 12-0 run by knocking down a 3-pointer and hitting a pair of free throws, and James finished it with two 3s and his own foul shots.
“I thought West Virginia had us on our heels with their press”, said Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger.
“We don’t do a lot of things well, but we really do compete”, Huggins said. The Sooners had a season-high 21 turnovers…. Devin Williams scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead WVU. This is their first NCAA Tournament in 20 years and even Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is a fan.
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Payton: This ought to sound familiar to Sonics fans: The Glove’s son was named the Pac-12’s defensive player of the year for the second year in a row, leading the conference with 2.5 steals per game while earning the nickname “The Mitten”.
