Hoops: Sooners beat South Carolina to secure first SEC win

NORMAN – Oklahoma was involved in another slugfest against South Carolina on Saturday.

Despite a poor first-half offense in which the Sooners scored just 34 points and committed 11 turnovers, Porter Moser’s squad held on to a 59-54 lead with 7:23 to play. But given the stakes and the threat of the Sooners falling to 0-5 in conference play, they needed a spark.

You got it.

Jalon Moore was fouled in two consecutive appearances and made 3 of 4 free throw attempts. Jeremiah’s fears then found Mohamed Wague for an alley-oop dunk, and Moore followed with a layup.

Fears found out with 4:05 left Kobe Elvis for the dagger 3-pointer that punctuated a 15-0 run and gave the Sooners an 18-point lead.

It was a scoring drive the Sooners desperately needed as they used that momentum to an 82-62 win at the Lloyd Noble Center.

It wasn’t the prettiest win, but it was a game the Sooners had to win to avoid falling to last place in the SEC standings. They improved to 14-4 this season and 1-4 in SEC play.

“The understatement of the year is how badly we needed this,” Moser said. “To create the narrative that we get out of the way first and get our confidence back to play winning basketball. You’re going to have a lot of opportunities in this league.”

“We had to record that (win) first so we could move forward.”

– Moore continues to be super aggressive offensively, and the Sooners needed that against the Gamecocks. He finished the game with a game-high 22 points on efficient 6-of-10 shooting and added eight rebounds. He was also good at getting to the free throw line, making 10 of 11 attempts.

This came just days after Moore scored a career-high 29 points against Texas, with 26 of those points coming in the second half.

– Turnovers threatened to doom the Sooners again. They committed 11 goals in the first half. But in the second half they sorted it out and only committed a single goal.

What helped? South Carolina was equally poor with the ball, committing 12 of its 17 turnovers in the first half. The Sooners also won the battle for points without turnovers 19-3.

“I think that’s the narrative of this team,” Moser said. “It was better to win basketball.” It’s been a theme for us the last two days. We had an old-school mission statement: We have to play better basketball and win games. I thought we had 11 (turnovers) in the first half, and we talked about: How many were unforced? Just dribble too deep.

“We really took care of it in the second half. Just a lot more urgency.”

– Dayton Forsythe after being out of the rotation for the first three SEC games had a few minutes in both halves. The true freshman entered the game with 13:20 left in the first half and hit a jump shot 14 seconds later.

Midway through the second half, he made one of the game’s best plays, hitting a long-legged 3-pointer with 8:14 on the clock that increased Oklahoma’s lead to eight.

This came after Forsythe gave the Sooners a spark in the second half of Wednesday’s loss to Texas.

Forsythe finished the game with five points, two rebounds and one assist and again provided effort plays on both sides. He’s probably earned a spot in the rotation going forward.

“After the last game we talked about it and we all asked ourselves, ‘Why should we do anything different than we did in the last 15 minutes of the Texas game?'” Forsythe said. “I feel like we achieved that today. We played like we did in the last 15 minutes and gave everything we had and the result was the result.”

– This was the second game with the Sooners’ new starting lineup, with Brycen Goodine replacing Kobe Elvis.

The results were mixed against Texas, but it paid off against the Gamecocks. Goodine made two 3-pointers while Elvis scored 12 points with four 3-pointers off the bench.

– Jeremiah Fears was great as the Sooners’ primary playmaker, nearly notching a triple double with a career-best 16 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

Fears’ jumper remained inconsistent, finishing 5 of 12 from the field and 0 of 4 from the 3-point line, keeping him from being OU’s leading scorer. But the structure of the game and the all-round game were there.

– The Sooners made 18 of 11 free throw attempts while the Gamecocks attempted just 11 of 21.

The Gamecocks’ struggles were a big reason the Sooners won the game.

Next up: The Sooners have a bye week before traveling to Arkansas on Saturday.

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