Oklahoma Basketball: Sooners overcome second-half deficit to beat Minnesota

Oklahoma Basketball overcame an eight-point second-half deficit, outscoring Minnesota 28-11 in the final 12 minutes en route to a 71-62 win to improve to 2-0 on the season.

Oklahoma Basketball won this game just about every way teams can. They got to the line more than the Gophers, converting 17/22 attempts. They won the rebound battle, 42-37 & also forced more turnovers, as they forced 13 and only coughed the ball up 9 times.

Not only did they get to the free throw line more, grab more rebounds, and win the turnover battle, but Oklahoma’s “Vet’s” led the charge in this game.

Kristian Doolittle had a 10 point & 10 rebound double-double in his return to action Brady Manek came up big with 17 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and a steal. Jamal Bieniemy had 15 points, 13 of those were in the second half.

The strong veteran output, along with an 11 point, six rebounds, four assist line from Austin Reaves allowed the Sooners to on a 23-4 second-half run, erased an eight-point deficit, and complete the comeback victory.

This is now back to back games where Oklahoma went on BIG runs in the second half to start the season. The 25-5 run against UTSA in the season opener, and the 23-4 second-half run in Sioux Falls against Minnesota.

There’s a couple of things about this:

First: The Sooners has started back to back games a little sluggish, which could hurt them one of these games when they can’t go on an amazing 2nd half run.

Second: This Sooner team can put up points and put them up in bunches. Whenever this Sooners team gets going, it’s really hard to stop them. Not only can they get hot on offense, but when they play with the energy they did in the Minnesota game, they can really lock down opponents.

Oklahoma will be one of the best scoring teams in the Big-12:

Oklahoma and their fast pace of play scored 85 points in game one of the season, and 71 points in game 2. And this is with a sluggish start in back to back games. I can only imagine what the score would be like when the team puts together a complete game.

But we should be accustomed to this. The Sooners scored the most points out of all the teams in the first round in the NCAA tournament last march, as they beat the Ole Miss Rebels 95-72, and hung around with last year’s national championship winners, Virginia in round 2.

Star Freshman De’Vion Harmon only shot 2-10 from the field, scoring 8 points, to go along with 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. The good thing about this? I now know that when Harmon doesn’t go for 23 points, the team will still score its fair share of points. And I firmly believe Harmon won’t have many of these games throughout the season, and when he does have those freshman slump games, its a good thing to know that he can produce in other areas of the floor.

So all in all, the team will be a good team offensively no matter what, and when Harmon doesn’t have the best game scoring wise, he should still be able to put up stats in other areas to help out.

The Sooners have looked very impressive to start the season, beating a UTSA team that should be at the top of the Conference-USA standings, and could be a team that could get a tournament bid.

And the win against Minnesota was huge, in what was basically a home game for the Gophers. Minnesota made it to the 2nd round of the March Madness tournament last season and will have a shot to make it again this season with Richard Pitino at the helm.

Oklahoma will play Oregon State Tuesday night at 10:30 PM C.T. in the first round of the Phil Knight invitational. The game will be on ESPN-2.