Sooners summarily dispatch Florida A&M as Brady Manek makes history
NORMAN -- After a lopsided road loss to Xavier on Wednesday, Lon Kruger remarked that his team needed to be more "disruptive" on defense.
On Saturday afternoon at the Lloyd Noble Center, the Sooners certainly appeared to have ironed out whatever defensive wrinkles they had previously displayed.
Behind the efforts of lightning-rod guard De'Vion Harmon and towering forward Kur Kuath, Oklahoma (3-1) thoroughly discombobulated Florida A&M (0-4), coasting to an 85-54 victory and limiting the Rattlers to 20-of-63 shooting.
Kuath led five Sooners in double figures with his 14 points, and tied a career high with eight rebounds. Harmon went for 10 points, and his six rebounds also matched a career high. Austin Reaves added 12 of his own, while Alondes Williams and Brady Manek each matched Harmon with 10.
Manek canned his 200th career three-pointer less than two minutes into action, giving Oklahoma a 7-2 advantage. The Harrah native is just the sixth Sooner to reach that mark, joining Tim Heskett, Hollis Price, Terry Evans, Steven Pledger and Buddy Hield. He also becomes the first player over 6-foot-9 in Big 12 history to hit 200 career triples.
"Each year, he's gotten better and better," said Kruger of his star forward. "Just a premier shooter that's starting to do other things well too."
The Sooners stretched their lead to double digits by the 14:30 mark of the first half, as Kuath took a fast-break feed from Williams and unloaded a monstrous one-handed slam to make the score 16-6. As a team, OU connected on eight of its first 11 shots from the floor.
To their credit, the Rattlers crept back into the contest, trimming Oklahoma's advantage to 29-22 on a bucket from Bryce Moragne with 4:37 to play in the half. But Reaves answered with a three-point play, and moments later, Kuath followed a block with an alley-oop dunk on the other end to re-ignite the sparse crowd.
Oklahoma took a 41-27 lead into the intermission, buoyed by Kuath's 10 points, four rebounds and two blocks. The senior from South Sudan even hoisted up a three-point try on the Sooners' last possession of the half, the second such attempt of his career. However, the high-arcing shot from the perimeter drew iron and rimmed out at the buzzer, and Kuath shared a laugh with Reaves as the teams retreated to the locker rooms.
"I've been working on a three-point shot," said Kuath. "I was hoping that one goes in... It was just funny, just because we both thought it looked good."
Kuath wasted no time in the second half, leaping high and putting back a Williams miss to open the period. Two possessions later, he nailed a jumper from the elbow to extend the lead to 45-27. Manek followed with a deep three-pointer, and the rout commenced.
Kuath eventually earned an early rest, giving way to redshirt freshman Rick Issanza and enjoying the last few minutes of the victory from the sideline.
"Kur's made terrific strides," said Kruger. "Excited about [his] progress, and he knows how tough it is in the Big 12, and he's going to keep getting better."
Virtually everyone got in on the scoring for Oklahoma, as Issanza and Anyang Garang each logged their first collegiate points. Midway through the second half, Issanza earned a trip to the line after drawing a foul inside. The Congolese behemoth airballed the first attempt, but found the cylinder with the second. Meanwhile, Garang put an exclamation point on the runaway win with an emphatic slam in the final minutes.
"I thought obviously, we learned a lot from the game against Xavier," said Kruger. "I thought we pretty much improved in every area."
In the losing effort, Johnny Brown paced the Rattlers with 16 points, and Moragne's 11 rebounds led all players.
Next up for Oklahoma is another home date, as they'll host Oral Roberts on Wednesday. The Golden Eagles are just 2-3 on the season, but have taken both Wichita State and Oklahoma State down to the wire, eventually falling 85-80 to the Shockers and 83-78 to the Cowboys.
Tip-off from the Lloyd Noble Center is set for 7 p.m.
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