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Oklahoma Ends Losing Streak in Measured Victory Over West Virginia

The Sooners avoided a five-game losing streak with an impressive bounce-back performance on the road in Morgantown.

Tanner Groves got back on track for the Oklahoma Sooners on Wednesday night, helping notch a much needed win.

OU traveled to Morgantown to square off with the West Virginia Mountaineers, and ended a four-game skid with a steady 72-62 victory over the Mountaineers from WVU Coliseum.

The road win pushed the Sooners to 13-7 on the year and 3-5 in Big 12 play, while the Mountaineers fell to 13-6 and 2-5 on the year.

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After failing to register a shot in the first half of Oklahoma’s last outing against the No. 5-ranked Baylor Bears, Groves wasted little time getting involved on the offensive end.

Groves scored OU’s first bucket of the game and eight of the Sooners’ first 14 points en route to a game-high 21 points on the night.

"It was just awesome,” Groves said after the game in a Zoom press conference. “I felt like the last four games, just me personally and the team in general, we've kind of been on a little bit of a skid.

“… It's tough. These are like the best teams in the country, so nothing is going to ever be easy… I think just offensively and turnover-wise, the last few games have been kind of rough for us. But we were able to turn it around and fight back.”

MBB - Tanner Groves, West Virginia Mountaineers

Tanner Groves

Entering the night as Oklahoma’s leading scorer, Groves showed off his entire arsenal against the Mountaineers. Not only was he a physical threat in the low post, Groves was also able to step out and knock down a 3-pointer, helping create space for his teammates.

“Well I think we saw it in the second half of Baylor, he saw those balls go in,” OU head coach Porter Moser said after the game in a Zoom press conference. “We were kind of hoping as a staff that like, it just takes a couple that he can see going in.

“And the way he practiced the last couple of days — the first practice we went live on Monday, I think the first four possessions he like, demanded the ball, hit a 3, scored inside. I mean, he scored like four. You could just see he had that confidence back as he saw a couple of them go in against Baylor. So it was really good to see him back, confident.”

And as a result, the OU offense had its best outing since a 79-point outing 2 1/2 weeks ago against the No. 23-ranked Iowa State Cyclones.

The offensive success also coincided with an enhanced emphasis on taking care of the basketball.

Oklahoma surrendered a season-high 25 turnovers last Saturday agains the Bears, and cut down on the offensive mistakes through the first 30 minutes of the game against the Mountaineers.

The Sooners were forced into some miscues down the stretch, and finished the night with 17 turnovers. While the focus waned offensively in the final minutes, Oklahoma was still able to force plenty of West Virginia mistakes, turning 15 Mountaineer turnovers into 20 points on the other end of the floor in comparison to WVU’v 17 points off turnovers.

“We had a couple of timely turnovers,” Moser said. “They speed you up. It’s easier said than done. Their pressure never stops.

“… Yeah, we had some turnovers, but we also had some really good plays. Got it out, passed ahead and got a basket. Did some really good things as well with it.”

OU got the job done despite a shakeup to the starting lineup.

MBB - Jacob Groves, West Virginia Mountaineers

Oklahoma celebrates Jacob Groves' first half buzzer beater

Jacob Groves stepped into the starting five for Elijah Harkless, who only logged four first-half minutes for the entire contest.

After the game, Moser said Harkless is healthy, the coaching staff just wanted to give Jacob Groves and Marvin Johnson some extra minutes after how hard they’ve worked in practice.

“Elijah is gonna be a huge part of what we’re doing,” Moser said. “Tonight was a thing where I shook up the lineup. I told him he was gonna play. He got in there and he got two fouls and Marvin was doing well. Jacob was doing well. We were just trying to give a different vantage point for E.J., maybe coming off the bench might help.

“He’s been a big part of what we’re doing. We’re gonna be counting on him moving forward. It’s good to get deeper.”

Making the most of his opportunity, Jacob Groves had a nice scoring night in support of his brother with 12 points, including a long buzzer-beater to end the first half. 

Johnson also added six points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block in 21 minutes of action.

Umoja Gibson also continued his streak of standout performances against the Mountaineers. After averaging 24.0 points per game across the two bouts last year, Gibson added another 12 points to help push the Sooners past West Virginia on Wednesday night.

“I thought Mo Gibson did a phenomenal job,” Moser said. “Mo played 37 minutes, he had five steals, he did some really good things.

“He handled the ball a lot because they were heating up Jordan Goldwire, and Jordan was in foul trouble a lot, and they were heating up Bijan (Cortes). And there were so many times Mo did a really good job bringing it up. Did a lot of things for us.”

Oklahoma’s road trip will continue this weekend, as the Sooners travel to face the No. 1-ranked Auburn Tigers on Saturday. It's the second time this year the Sooners face the top-rated team in the country on the road.

Tip-off between the Sooners and the Tigers is scheduled for 1 p.m., and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Tanner Groves said the WVU win will be huge for the psyche of the team as they hit the road to try and pull a huge upset on Saturday.

“Coach said it best,” Groves said. “We were celebrating, we were all excited and we got in the huddle at the end and coach said something I liked: 'Why not Oklahoma?' I couldn't agree more with him.

“We are so capable of doing great things. We are right there with some of the best teams in the nation. … We can beat these teams. We just have to believe and stick with it and continue to preach our culture and be solid with it.”


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