Oklahoma's Austin Reaves earns Big 12 honor

After hitting game-winner at WVU, Sooners senior is among conference leaders in scoring, rebounding, assists and shooting

John E. Hoover | Feb 15, 2021

Austin Reaves taking over the second half of Oklahoma’s big win at West Virginia — particularly his game-winning floater to put the Sooners up 91-90 in the final seconds — earned him his second career Big 12 Conference’s player of the week honors.

Reaves shares this week’s award with West Virginia’s Sean McNeil. Kansas’ Jalen Wilson is Newcomer of the Week.

Reaves hit the game-winning shot to lead the Sooners in a double-overtime thriller on the road at No. 14 West Virginia. He had 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists while shooting 50 percent from the field and 100 percent from the free throw line.

The senior guard scored 22 of his points after halftime, including the winning bucket with 26 seconds remaining in the second overtime period.

Reaves became just the third player in Big 12 history to produce a game of 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. The win was OU's nation-leading fifth over a top-15 team this season.

Reaves is currently fifth among Big 12 scorers at 16.56 points per game, ranks 13th at 5.56 rebounds per game, and is second at 5.44 assists per game. He’s also seventh in the conference in field goal shooting at .442. and leads the league in free throw shooting at .882.

According to OU research, he's the only player in the country averaging 16.5, 5.6 and 5.4 this season.

OU (13-5, 8-4 Big 12) stands alone in second place in the Big 12 standings and is scheduled to play Texas on Tuesday night in Norman, weather permitting.

Published Feb 15, 2021

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.