JUST NOW: Oklahoma battles back to upset the No. 1 team, but Houston fails to win the game with Jamal Shead

After cutting a 15-point lead in the second half, Oklahoma lost to Houston 87-85 despite Jamal Shead’s game-winning basket with just 0.4 seconds remaining.

NORMAN — Nestled beneath the basket was Rivaldo Soares. Jalon Moore went to the ground close to the midway point.

Jamal Shead rushed to the opposite end of the court and celebrated on Saturday night at the Lloyd Noble Center, leaving Oklahoma astonished. With 0.4 seconds remaining, Houston’s outstanding guard—likely the Big 12 Player of the Year—made a baseline jumper after an offensive rebound as the top-ranked OK attempted an upset, but Houston prevailed 87-85.

The Cougars prevented the Sooners from pulling off a huge upset in Norman by thwarting their last-ditch effort on a full-court inbound pass.

Oklahoma fell behind by as many as 15 points in the second half, but they battled back for the better part of the last 12 minutes of play, eventually matching the score with 11.8 seconds remaining on a powerful drive through traffic by Javian McCollum. After Sam Godwin split a pair of free throws, Milos Uzan grabbed the offensive rebound and kept possession alive for the Sooners by lobbing the ball off a Houston player on the sideline. That layup concluded an odd three-point possession for Oklahoma.

With a few seconds remaining on Houston’s next possession, Shead missed a jumper; however, the star guard grabbed the loose ball rebound and pulled up for the game-winning basket. During Oklahoma’s most difficult back-to-back stretch of the season, the squad lost to a top-10 team for the second time in a row, sending the boisterous and electrifying crowd at the Lloyd Noble Center shuffling toward the exits.

Porter Moser remarked, “There was a rough vibe in the locker room.” The guys weren’t content to be near each other. They put up a fierce fight. thought given their degree of energy. They performed plays. Houston, of course, made some huge plays as well. They are in pain. And that’s encouraging.”

After giving the nation’s top team all they had for forty minutes, with five Sooners scoring in double digits, highlighted by Sam Godwin’s 17 points (on 6-of-6 shooting), the Sooners’ loss was unexpected and disheartening. Rivaldo Soares contributed 16, Letre Darthard contributed 15, Jalon Moore contributed 14, and McCollum contributed 12.

It all came down to the Sooners losing two buzzer-beaters on Saturday, and that was the deciding factor. At the end of the first half, LJ Cryer made a 3-pointer to give Houston a 48-45 lead at the half. Then, despite a heroic attempt on its home court, Shead’s game-winning basket completed a dismal defeat for Oklahoma.

“We played the best team in the country, but we fell short,” Moser stated. “When you face a squad that good, there is very little room for error. The fact that they scored five points in the last seconds of either half is what irks me.”

What Sooners Illustrated learned from the action on Saturday night is as follows:

Oklahoma delivered its strongest blow.

In Oklahoma’s midweek defeat to Iowa State, their offense demanded too much work for too little return. On Saturday night, it wouldn’t have been shocking to see the Sooners having to battle for every possession against the Cougars due to a Houston defense that profiles extremely similarly to ISU’s.

Instead, Oklahoma came out swinging with its best punch while putting together arguably its best offensive half of the season, when you consider the opponent. Oklahoma put up 45 points in an electric first half that included 16 lead changes and another 10 ties, as the Sooners and Cougars went toe to toe for the first 20 minutes of action. It was about as good a first half as Porter Moser could have hoped for, as OU shot 50% from the field (14-of-28 overall), connected on 53.8% of its 3-point attempts (7-of-13) and went a perfect 10-for-10 from the free-throw line while committing just three turnovers.

Everything was seemingly working for the Sooners, despite a few missed bunnies at the rim by Jalon Moore (who also knocked down a pair of corner 3-pointers early on). It was, arguably, the most confident the team has collectively looked shooting the ball all season.

“We did a lot of good things,” Moser said. “We spaced it. So much better in the first half. We were ball tough. I thought we were so much more ball tough in there. Some of the actions that we did, we didn’t turn it over. I thought we played faster. We really talked these last two days about playing with more of a pace than we did in Ames, but for sure, we executed way better tonight than we have against the best — I mean, their analytics are close to being the best defense in the history of defenses. Seriously, I’m not exaggerating; look at the numbers. So, I thought we did way better, and obviously it does help if you make some of those shots.”

Yet even as Oklahoma gave Houston its best shot from the jump, the Cougars still went into halftime with a three-point lead, up 48-45 after LJ Cryer banked in a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer (which required a review after the game clock malfunctioned in the waning seconds of the half). For as good as Oklahoma was offensively, Houston was even better. The Cougars shot 67% from the field (18-of-27), hit 5-of-8 3-point attempts and went 7-of-9 from the line while averaging 1.55 points per possession (compared to 1.45 points per possession for the Sooners).

LJ Cryer’s incendiary stretch made a big difference

Jamal Shead’s game-winner will get most of the attention for Houston in its harrowing escape Saturday night, but it was fellow Cougars guard LJ Cryer who was the real difference maker against Oklahoma. Cryer had a game-high 23 points, and a critical 3 ½-minute stretch during which he went supernova nearly buried the Sooners on their home floor.

Oklahoma and Houston were tied at 45-45 with just 3 seconds left in the first half. Then Cryer banked in a buzzer-beater to give the Cougars a three-point lead at the break. He proceeded to score Houston’s first 11 points of the second half—scoring 14 straight points for the Cougars overall—as they stretched their lead to eight early in the second half.

Cryer went 5-of-9 from deep on a night Houston connected on 10 of its 19 attempts from beyond the arc, combatting Oklahoma’s own sharp-shooting performance on its home floor.

“Some of the shots they hit, late shot clock–just high-level shots,” Moser said.

Oklahoma’s 3-point shooting kept it afloat

Oklahoma shot better from beyond the arc than it had all season, and they needed every 3-pointer to stave off Houston’s elite defense.

Against the Cougars, the Sooners shot 12-of-25 from beyond the arc, setting a new season best for both 3-point percentage overall and made 3-pointers in big 12 play. With 13 made triples against Arkansas Pine-Bluff, the Sooners were just one point away from tying their season high; their previous best deep-ball percentage was 45.5% versus USC and Central Arkansas.

Oklahoma opened the game 6-of-10 from deep and connected on seven of its 13 attempts in the first half while staying neck-and-neck with Houston. The Sooners cooled off coming out of halftime, though, missing each of their first five attempts from deep in the second half. They refound their footing as they mounted a comeback, however, connecting on five of their final seven attempts from beyond the arc.

Five Oklahoma players made at least one 3-pointer, with four of them knocking down multiple shots from deep — but none of them shot better than Le’tre Darthard, who was 5-of-7 from 3-point range, including 3-for-3 in the second half to help the Sooners claw their way back from a 15-point deficit down the stretch.

“It was great to see him hit some shots,” Moser said of Darthard. “He hit the one in the corner of the zone play. We wheeled him around in the zone when they went zone, and then they flew at him and he shot faked and he hit another one. He hit five 3s. It makes all the difference in the world for us.”