Sooners avoid disaster with late spurt at ORU
November 28, 2012 by OUHoops
Filed under Featured, Latest News, Men's Basketball
Lon Kruger’s Oklahoma basketball team is definitely turning “winning ugly” into an art form.
After trailing most of the game against Oral Roberts Wednesday night in Tulsa, including double digits in the second half, Kruger’s Sooners managed to escape with a 63-62 win and improve to 5-1 on the young season.
In their past three “ugly” wins against UT-Arlington, UTEP and West Virginia, it was the Sooners who had to hold off late runs by their opponents.
This time, they would have to overcome a sluggish start and 10-point second half deficit with 9:07 to go.
Once again it was Steven Pledger who hit the biggest shots of the game, just as he had in OU’s previous three wins.
The senior only finished with nine points, but five of those were in the final four minutes — a three-pointer to give the Sooners their first lead of the second half and another jumper to extend it to 63-60 with 1:20 to go.
Junior Amath M’Baye led the way for Oklahoma with 12 points and nine rebounds.
The other bright spot was freshman Buddy HIeld, who sparked OU off the bench with 11 points and six rebounds, including several big baskets in the second half comeback.
Romero Osby was the only other Oklahoma player in double figures with 11.
All in all, the Sooners are very lucky to leave Tulsa in the win column after shooting 39 percent on the road to ORU’s 47 percent.
The win was OU’s 12th-straight over Oral Roberts (3-4).
The Sooners will return to the LNC for a Friday night matchup against Northwestern State.
