OU Basketball: New Faces Shine for Oklahoma in Exhibition Win Over OCU

Seven new Sooners made their debut on Tuesday night in OU's lone exhibition contest of the season.

NORMAN — Porter Moser’s Oklahoma Sooners looked a little different on Tuesday night.

Taking the floor for the first time in the 2022-23 season, seven new Sooners made their debut in OU’s 89-53 exhibition game victory over the Oklahoma City University Stars at Lloyd Noble Center.

Transfers Grant Sherfield, Joe Bamisile, Sam Godwin and Yaya Keita joined freshmen Otega Oweh, Milos Uzan and Benny Schroder in taking the floor in an Oklahoma uniform for the first time.

Sherfield was the only newcomer to crack the starting lineup, but nine different Sooners got a healthy helping of minutes throughout the opening 30 minutes of the contest. He looked comfortable running the offense, though it took Sherfield until the second half to find his shooting touch.

The Nevada transfer finished with a team-high 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting, also dishing out four assists for the Sooners.

Sherfield said there’s plenty more to come from him, but he was pleased to make his debut.

“I feel like I could’ve been better for sure,” he said. “But I was just excited to get out there and play against some different guys because when we’re competing against each other every day, it starts to get rough. I was just happy with everything that went well. I’m just happy to be out here, happy to be part of the team.”

A familiar face in Tanner Groves also posted a double-double, as he scored 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting, including knocking down 2-of-4 attempts from 3-point range, and pulled down 11 rebounds.

Uzan and Oweh made an impression from the bench in their first action of the year.

Getting into a groove early on, Uzan scored nine of his 11 points in the first half.

Unafraid to put the ball on the floor and get to his spot in the mid-range, Uzan was a perfect 4-of-4 from inside the arc.

Oklahoma freshman Milos Uzan made his debut on Tuesday night against the Oklahoma City University Stars :: BRYAN TERRY / THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK

Oweh was happy to attack the basket as well.

Spreading the floor on the wing with his 6-foot-5, 210-pound frame, Oweh found success as a cutter. He ended the night with 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, also pulling down three rebounds.

“It was good to see (Uzan) got a lot of minutes. (Oweh) got a lot of minutes,” Moser said. “And it was good. Both of them, you can see right out of the gate, athletically, stature-wise, they’re 6-4. Otega’s just his body — I mean, he did some really good things defensively. He can really move his feet defensively.

“… I thought the freshmen came in and did some really nice things. And first time out, you know, there’s always the first game. And then you get more comfortable and comfortable and comfortable. So I was able to get them a bunch of minutes and that’s good.”

Godwin and Bamisile also contributed off the bench, finding ways to impact all aspects of the game.

Bamisile pulled down nine rebounds to add to his seven points, and Godwin scored eight points and added five rebounds as a third option down low behind Groves and Jalen Hill.

Overall, Oklahoma shot 50 percent from the field, but the Sooners struggled to connect from deep.

The team combined to shoot just 6-of-26 from 3.

Moser wasn’t overly concerned with the shooting performance, as he thought it was more a byproduct of the game plan.

“We tried to stay real simple offensively,” he said. “We tried to stay super simple offensively as you could tell. I think we still got shots but you know, you don’t want to unleash everything in these exhibitions. But tried to stay super simple just in terms of what we tried to do offensively. Don’t think we’re going to shoot that poorly.”

But OU defended well against a physically outmatched OCU team, holding the Stars to 27 percent shooting from the field. Oklahoma also won the rebounding battle 56-33, though the Sooners committed 15 turnovers.

“We were really mixing and matching a lot of lineups,” Moser said. “But I thought they shot 29 percent so defensively, if you’ve been doing it long enough you’ll see an exhibition team and all of a sudden they shot 46 percent and you’re sitting there going, man. So I think defensively we did some nice things.”

With the dress rehearsal in the books, Oklahoma will open up regular season play on Nov. 7 against Sam Houston State.

Tip-off from the Lloyd Noble Center is scheduled for 7 p.m., and the game will be broadcast on ESPN+.

---

Want to join the discussion? Click here to become a member of the AllSooners message board community today!

Sign up for your premium membership to AllSooners.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network!

Follow AllSooners on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest OU news.

Get your OU tickets from SI Tickets HERE.