Oklahoma Looking to Cap Senior Night With Crucial Win Over West Virginia
Senior Sight will carry a little extra weight this year.
The Oklahoma Sooners will honor a bevy of transfer seniors on Tuesday night, but the home finale will also serve as a critical tilt for OU’s NCAA Tournament dreams.
Oklahoma (15-14 overall, 5-11 in Big 12 play) will play host to the West Virginia Mountaineers (14-15, 3-13), as the Sooners try to sweep the last-place team in the Big 12.
OU will carry momentum from a 66-62 overtime win against the Oklahoma State Cowboys, where the Sooners found a solid bench contribution from senior guard Marvin Johnson.
Playing in his next-to-last regular season game at the Lloyd Noble Center, Johnson scored 10 points, with six rebounds and two steals.
Marvin Johnson
Alonzo Adams / USA TODAY Sports
The most impactful of those came on Oklahoma State’s final chance of the game, where Johnson stole the inbounds pass, denying the Cowboys a chance to tie the game or take the lead and taking the ball himself for the game-sealing layup on the other end.
Now taking the floor for the final time in Norman, Johnson will have another huge role to play if the Sooners are to notch their first back-to-back victories since OU’s Big 12 opener on Jan. 1.
“You look at (Johnson’s) length and he’s older,” Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser said during a Zoom press conference on Monday. “It’s his length and his athleticism.
“He got two steals on inbounds plays (against Oklahoma State), just getting his length in the game. … He drove to the rack and got fouled. He created a little bit of something out of nothing with his athleticism. He got to the foul line and made both free throws. You need those type of plays.”
Johnson made his presence felt in the first matchup against the Mountaineers, too. He scored six points, pulled down four rebounds and doled out two assists, while swiping a steal and registering one block.
But Moser will need plenty more contributions beyond Johnson for Oklahoma to continue to fight for its tournament life.
In Morgantown, OU got double-digit scoring performances from Tanner Groves, Umoja Gibson and Jacob Groves, a trio who again may need to help carry the weight on Tuesday night.
Jacob Groves
Ben Queen / USA TODAY Sports
Fortunately for the Sooners, they were able to win Game 1 against West Virginia virtually without the help of Elijah Harkless.
Though he wasn’t injured, Harkless only played four minutes in the first contest, meaning Moser and the coaching staff already have a successful game plan on tape sans the defensive stopper.
“Marvin made some good plays. Jacob Groves made some good plays. Bijan (Cortes) made some good plays,” Moser said. “We got a lot of depth in that game.
“ … You can see when we win, we get help from multiple guys. That’s just the way we are. We aren’t built any other way. We did take notice of that too.”
On top of all of those performances, the Sooners can also get more productivity from Jordan Goldwire, who will also be playing in his final game in front of the Sooner faithful.
Goldwire logged 37 exhausting minutes against the Cowboys, tallying 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists on Saturday afternoon.
All hands on deck will be necessary to top a Mountaineer team that still hasn’t thrown in the towel this year.
The path to the NCAA Tournament for West Virginia runs through Kansas City, as it is likely the Mountaineers will have to win the Big 12 Tournament to earn a bid to the Big Dance. That desperation was channeled into a nice performance in WVU’s last outing, as Bob Huggins’ squad pushed the No. 20 Texas Longhorns, falling 81-80.
“If you watch the Texas-West Virginia game,” said Moser, “ … It is a high, high level, intense game. There's no way if you didn't know anything about anything and you watched that game that you would say that West Virginia is anything but a top three team in this league. That's the way they looked.
“They're playing so hard. There were some high-level physicality, high-level plays in that game.”
Oklahoma and West Virginia meet Tuesday night, with tip-off from the Lloyd Noble Center scheduled for 6, and the game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
“They're a good team just like every other team in the Big 12, so we have to take them seriously,” Jacob Groves said on Monday. “We've done a really, really good job of scouting this week, getting our game plan into practice and just working through some things.
“We're really looking forward to it."
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