End of half struggles help end OU’s season

The progress that Oklahoma had shown over the last three weeks of a lost season evaporated Wednesday night in the Sooners’ 82-63 first-round Big 12 Tournament loss to TCU at the Sprint Center.

“Just our effort, our intensity—everything we’ve been working on the last three weeks (went away),” Oklahoma sophomore Rashard Odomes said. “Mental breakdowns. We played this team just last week, so there shouldn’t have been any mistakes. We didn’t make them last week and we were making them this week.”

That’s the kind of season it was for the Sooners, who a season after making the Final Four finished just 11-20.

It all came crashing down—for good—in a four-minute span to end the first half.

After Oklahoma tied the game at 29 entering the under-four timeout, TCU coach Jamie Dixon went away from the zone defense which had given the Sooners fits for much of the first 16 minutes.

That helped kickstart a 15-2 stretch by TCU that gave the Horned Frogs a comfortable lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

Coming off the timeout, the Horned Frogs got a layup from Kenrich Williams with little resistance and then turned a rebound off a missed 3-pointer by Kameron McGusty into a Williams 3-pointer in transition to start stretching the lead.

“They were hitting shots,” McGusty said. “They were killing. We weren’t getting the boards we needed and we weren’t playing that hard either.”

The breakdowns came on both ends of the floor, with a pair of Sooners turnovers fueling the run and missed defensive assignments leaving Horned Frogs shooters— especially Williams— open.

“We just messed up on little things like coming off pick-and-rolls and helping when we weren’t supposed to help, which left the corner open,” Oklahoma point guard Darrion Strong-Moore said. “That’s when they capitalized and made threes.”

Williams’ three was followed by one from Alex Robinson and what was a tied game became a double-digit TCU lead in just 2:20 after the timeout.

“The rebounding was key,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. “They were hurting us on some second shots and keeping them off the foul line, but I think our shot selection was good. We got a couple of steals out of Kenrich (Williams) in the man-toman, so the change in the defense at the timeout did something when we went back to man at that point and that helped us.”

Oklahoma missed all three of its field goals in the final four minutes while the Horned Frogs went 6 of 7 from the floor to close out the half and take a 13-point lead into the break.

“From that point, it seemed like they were dictating for much of the second half,” Sooners coach Lon Kruger said.

Oklahoma briefly cut the deficit to seven with about 12 minutes to go but the lead quickly stretched to 17.

Khadeem Lattin continued his late-season surge, with 18 points and 9 rebounds, going 7 of 10 from the field.

Outside of the starting inside tandem of Lattin and Kristian Doolittle, the Sooners were just 11 of 37 (29.7 percent) from the floor.

The trio of Vladimir Brodziansky, Williams and Robinson combined for 56 points. Brodziansky led TCU with 20 points, Williams added 19 points and 11 rebounds and Robinson scored 17.

The Horned Frogs scored 38 of their points in the paint and 11 came on the fast break.