OU Basketball: Oklahoma Jumps With SEC Tournament Win Over Georgia

Oklahoma stepped up one rung on the NCAA Tournament ladder Wednesday night — and it was a big one.

The Sooners took down Georgia 81-75 in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Nashville, their third win in a row as college basketball’s march to madness continues.

No. 14-seed Oklahoma, which finished just 6-12 in SEC play, improved to 20-12 overall. The 11-seeded Bulldogs (8-10 in league play) fell to 20-11.

The Sooners lost at Georgia 72-62 on Jan. 11 — a game in which Jeremiah Fears scored just 2 points on 1-of-11 shooting, 0-for-4 from 3-point range.

Fears scored 29 this time around as OU took a massive step toward the postseason.

Mo Wague’s offensive rebound with 46 seconds to play as OU clung to a 76-71 lead put the Sooners in position to put the game away — Wague had 12 points and nine rebounds on the night — but after Porter Moser called timeout, the Sooners couldn’t get the ball inbounds and Georgia came away with its 12th turnover.

"Mo Wague was terrific," Moser said.

The Bulldogs then committed a backcourt violation, however, with 30.6 seconds left. Fears and Dayton Forsythe made free throws down the stretch to lock it up.

Silas Demary scored 24 points to lead the Bulldogs, but spent part of the second half in foul trouble. Asa Newell had 19 for Georgia, while Blue Cain scored 17.

Oklahoma returns to Bridgestone Arena on Thursday for a late night clash with Kentucky. The Wildcats beat OU 83-82 in Norman back on Feb. 26. Tipoff is expected around 8:30 p.m. on SEC Network.

OU didn't make the postseason in either of Moser's first three seasons, and this year seemed headed down that same path. But the Sooners have rallied around each other, and now all indications are that Moser's fourth team will finally be the one that breaks through.

"This group's been resilient through a lot," Moser said on ESPN afterward. " ... Now we just keep moving up, the seeds."

"It means a lot, just ... all the work that coach puts in; he talks to us, like he said, every single day, and just constantly keeping our faith in the Lord, and we did a great job of that throughout the whole conference, through the ups and downs. And I think it was obviously challenging for us, but we stayed together and came out on top."

Here are three takeaways from the Sooners’ big win:

Strong Finish

Oklahoma led at the break after a late burst from the perimeter, but Georgia started the second half on a 12-5 run to take a 48-46 lead and led for most of the rest of the game, including matching their biggest lead at 64-58 after a 3-pointer by Cain with 8:26 to play.

A pair of layups by Wague, a pair of jump shots by Kobe Elvis and a pair of drives to the basket by Fears kept the Sooners in striking distance.

Georgia opened the second half shooting 53 percent from the field, including 5-of-11 from the perimeter.

Fears, who had a six-point possession in the first half, then scored eight points all by himself as the Bulldogs began to cool off.

That was part of a 14-0 run for the Sooners, turning a six-point deficit into a 72-64 lead with 3:30 on the clock.

The run reached 16-0 when Elvis took the shot clock down to zero and tossed in a backbreaking layup, giving Oklahoma a 10-point lead with 2:30 to play.

Still, Oklahoma found a way — numerous ways, actually — to make the final two minutes stressful.

Fears finished 4-of-7 from 3-point range, matching his career high set twice against Arizona and Florida this season.

After a tough stretch from late January to mid-February where he averaged just 9.4 points and made 2-of-14 shots from 3-point range (14 percent), Fears is finishing strong, averaging 21 points per game in his last eight games and shooting 13-of-37 (35 percent).

"I think it's a lesson in life," Moser said. "Our faith in God; put you in tough situations and believing things, and I tell you what ... every day, we came in and talked about fighting through hard and believing and staying together. And these guys have been resilient. We've had some gut punch losses, but I'm telling you how many people — we go at Florida, at Alabama — that's fun for these guys to come in and keep believing through adversity. It's such a lesson for life of fighting through hard."

Sizzling First Half

The Sooners led 43-39 at halftime as Fears and Jalon Moore each hit 3-of-4 from 3-point range for the Sooners. OU shot 52 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes, including a blistering 10-of-18 from beyond the arc. In addition to Fears and Moore, Elvis, Forsythe, Duke Miles and Brycen Goodine each hit one from outside.

But Georgia countered by converting nine Sooner turnovers into eight points, outscoring OU 11-8 on second-chance points, and dominating 16-8 in the paint to keep it close.

Two treys by Moore and one by Forsythe sparked a 9-0 Oklahoma run and helped the Sooners turn a 37-34 deficit into a 43-39 lead in the final 3:45.

Fears led the Sooner attack at halftime with 13 points, while Moore had nine and Mo Wague had 7. Silas Demary led Georgia at the break with 14, while Asa Newell scored 9.

Oklahoma and the Bracket

The bracket experts had Oklahoma comfortably on the NCAA Tournament bubble going into Wednesday, but that’s sure to change as teams move up or down nationwide.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had OU as the top team among his “Last Four In” grouping, while CBS’s Jerry Palm had the Sooners as an 11-seed but still labeled as a team with “work to do.”

Thanks to two wins to close the regular season over Missouri and Texas, the Sooners had climbed this week in the NCAA NET Rankings from 50th to 45th.

OU went into Wednesday’s action at No. 47 in the NET.

It was another Quad 1 victory for the Sooners, as Georgia came in ranked No. 31 in the NET Rankings. The Sooners are now 7-10 against Quad 1 opponents and 4-1 against Quad 2.