Marchelus Avery the Lone Bright Spot in 80-65 Blowout Loss to Sooners
OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok – It was a rough night for Oklahoma State as they fell to Oklahoma in the new-look Bedlam series, 80-65.
With the loss, the Cowboys fell to 6-3 to start the season and will be back in action Wednesday, December 18, as they play host to Tarleton State.
“Hats off to Porter [Moser] and the University of Oklahoma, that’s a good basketball team,” Steve Lutz said after the game. “In the first half of tonight’s game, they played exceptionally well. Give them credit, they were well prepared, well coached and for whatever reason, we did not have our best game. Part of that has to fall upon me, part of that has to fall upon our players but we did not play our best, especially in the first half. Our effort was bad, our defense was bad, we turned the ball over 11 times, we shot 2-for-12 from three. I don’t really know what else I can tell you.”
In the first half, the Cowboys shot just 26% from the field and 17% from 3-point range on 2-of-12 shooting.
Senior Marchelus Avery was the lone bright spot for the Pokes as he finished with a team-high 19 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, 3-of-4 from 3-point range and 4-of-7 from the free throw line. He also had a team-high six rebounds.
Arturo Dean was the only other Cowboy who had double-figure points, scoring 11 points on 3-of-7 shooting.
As a team, the Cowboys struggled from start to finish as they shot just 39% from the field, just 28% from 3-point range and 64% from the free throw line. They out-rebounded OU 39-36 but only scored 16 points on the boards.
On the other side, the Sooners shot 49% from the field and 35% from 3-point range.
The Cowboys turned the ball over 16 times, allowing 21 points on the other end.
The Cowboys kept things competitive for the first 10 minutes of the first half, making it a six-point game just under 10 minutes left in the half, 19-13, following three free throws from Khalil Brantley. That’s when OU blew things open on an 11-0 run in less than three minutes to make it a 30-12 game.
It was over from that point moving forward as the Pokes entered the break trailing the Sooners, 43-26, following a 3-point buzzer beater from Northweather.
It was an unusual first half for the Pokes this season as they turned the ball over 10 times in the first 14 minutes, as well as had two shot clock violations.