OU Basketball: Grant Sherfield Shines as Oklahoma Tops Seton Hall
Oklahoma took charge of a back-and-forth game late to beat the Seton Hall Pirates on Friday night and advance to the ESPN Events Invitational Final.
Powered by a 7-0 run that started with just over 10 minutes remaining the in game, OU was able to keep the Pirates at arms’ length down the stretch to close out the 77-64 victory in Kissimmee, FL.
Oklahoma 5-1 while Seton Hall fell to 4-2.
OU big man Tanner Groves played just 15 minutes in the contest due to foul trouble, but backup Sam Godwin played the best game of his young Sooner career to give Porter Moser’s team a needed boost.
Godwin came off the bench and scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting against Seton Hall, pulled down six rebounds and doled out a pair of assists.
The Sooners didn’t burst out to a fast shooting start as they did against Nebraska on Thursday, but guard Grant Sherfield picked up the slack.
Sherfield poured in 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting, his best scoring night in an Oklahoma uniform, while also pulling down three rebounds and dishing out three assists. He also knocked down 3-of-5 shots from beyond the arc.
Thirteen of his points came in the first half, but a late triple helped wrap up the game for the Sooners.
With 4:44 left on the clock, the Nevada transfer launched a deep 3-pointer from well beyond the arc, burying the jumper and putting OU up by nine points.
At the time, the nine-point advantage was the largest lead for either team in the contest, which saw nine lead changes and seven ties.
Oklahoma forward Jacob Groves added 10 points for the Sooners in a winning effort on Friday night
Rich Storry / USA TODAY Sports
To close out the game, the Pirates applied full-court pressure and Moser turned to Sherfield, sophomore C.J. Noland and true freshman Milos Uzan to break the pressure and push the team across the finish line.
Oklahoma didn’t commit a single turnover over the final four minutes of the game after turning to the three-guard lineup to close.
The Sooners recovered from a slow shooting start to knock down 52 percent of their attempts from the field against a Seton Hall defense that had help opponents to 34.9 percent shooting in its first five games. .
Jalen Hill and Jacob Groves both finished scoring in double figures with 10 points apiece.
Despite the early foul trouble, Tanner Groves still added eight points, connecting on 2-of-4 from 3-point range while grabbing five rebounds.
Uzan only scored four points, but he finished with five assists and zero turnovers in 21 minutes on Friday night.
The Sooners only turned the ball over eight times to Seton Hall’s 14 mistakes, and OU converted those Pirate mistakes into 17 points on the other end of the floor.
Oklahoma will meet Ole Miss in the ESPN Events Invitational final on Sunday at 12:30 p.m, and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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