OU Basketball: Oklahoma Tops Kansas City Behind Second Half Outburst
NORMAN — Oklahoma overcame a slow offensive start to get back in the win column on Tuesday night.
After heading into halftime tied, the Sooner offense woke up in the second half to pace OU past the Kansas City Roos 75-53 at the Lloyd Noble Center.
Spearheaded by guard Grant Sherfield and forward Tanner Groves, the Sooners exploded out of the locker room on a 15-3 run to take a stranglehold on the game.
“We wanted to put the pace up (in the second half) because they try to slow you down with pressing you and then zone and then they'll kind of go zone to a man,” OU coach Porter Moser said after the game. “They get you using a lot of the shot clock and they use a lot of the shot clock and we just talked about getting stops and running and passing ahead and being way more aggressive to get the pace going.
"And that's what I think, when we really opened up is when the Bijan (Cortes), (Milos Uzan) and Grant really got the pace going downhill.”
After scoring just two points from the charity stripe in the first half, Sherfield hit back-to-back-to-back triples out of the first media timeout in the second half to extend the Sooner lead to 14 points.
Sherfield’s 24 points on 5-of-6 shooting from deep led the way on the night for an Oklahoma offense that sleep walked through much of the first half.
“I've seen him get cooking before. I've seen it in practice. I've seen it in games,” Moser said of Sherfield’s performance. “I thought he had his best defensive game. That's what I told him. He played really hard on the defensive end. Guarding the ball. Keeping them in ball screens.
“… I think when he gets going, you can just see he heats up. You can just see it in his eyes. He’s like that. We’re gonna see that a lot where he can get cooking.”
Kansas City held OU without a field goal for nearly five minutes in the first half, building a 15-6 lead on the back of a 13-1 scoring run.
Sam Godwin was good off the bench again for Moser, adding six points in the first half to help get the offense flowing again to level the game at 27 headed into halftime.
“Coming in I knew what my role was,” Godwin said. “Come in and provide hustle plays and offensive rebounds, anything I could do to get the team extra possessions. So that’s my focus going into the game every night and just giving my best effort.”
Compounding OU’s scoring struggles, the Roos also took a rebounding advantage into the intermission, pulling down 18 rebounds to Oklahoma’s 10 in the first half.
Though the Sooners lost the rebounding battle 30-28 on the night, Oklahoma did a much better job on the glass in the second half to help shore up the performance.
OU guard Milos Uzan joined Sherfield scoring in double figures, as the freshman added 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting.
“I just thought it was time,” Moser said of handing Uzan the start. “He's been playing really well. He's been in practice and in the games, and I think his minutes has been really good.
“… I thought he responded great. I thought Los was really good. He had 11 points and five assists in his first start. He had five assists, but he could have about 10. He threw some dimes for some open threes that we just didn't knock down.”
If Uzan had any nerves about his first start, he quickly tossed those aside by nailing a 3-pointer on the first possession of the game.
“It was a little jitters coming in,” Uzan said. “But when he backed up he was kind of like giving it to me. So it was kind of cool for sure.”
Groves also scored double-digits for the Sooners, adding 11 points and three rebounds, and Godwin ended up with 10 points.
Oklahoma’s defense also helped loosen up the offense on Tuesday night.
The Sooners forced 16 Kansas City turnovers, and cashed those mistakes in for 19 points on the other end of the floor.
When the dust settled, OU shot 58 percent from the floor as a team, knocking down 7-of-17 from deep.
Moser will hope the Sooners can carry their second half shooting stroke into the weekend as Oklahoma will match up with the No. 9-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks at the BOK Center in Tulsa on Saturday.
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