Porter Moser says OU basketball took 'foot off the gas defensively' in loss to Texas Tech
NORMAN — Defense doomed OU on Saturday.
Despite getting a last-second chance to tie in the closing seconds, despite the offense’s sluggish start, despite a season-high nine missed free throws, it was defense that sent the Sooners to an 85-84 loss to Texas Tech at Lloyd Noble Center on Saturday.
“Some of us, we take the foot off the gas defensively,” OU basketball coach Porter Moser said. “We keep fighting, and I don’t have 30 timeouts, you know? … You just got to be down and ready, know what we’re going to do.
“Everything matters in a one-point loss.”
The Red Raiders shot 72% from the floor (18 of 25) in the second half, making their last six shots from the field, including Chance McMillian’s 3-pointer with less than 90 seconds remaining.
McMillian scored a career-high 27 and Texas Tech finished it off at the free-throw line to hand the Sooners their second consecutive loss — both at home.
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Even with those defensive issues, though, OU had a chance at the end.
Joe Toussaint’s missed free throw with 17 seconds left gave the Sooners a chance to either win or tie it.
But Milos Uzan’s layup bounced hard off the rim, Pop Isaacs grabbed the rebound and hit his free throws at the other end to put the game away — though Rivaldo Soares hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer that was irrelevant except for the final score.
“Coach does a great job of trying to take away (the other team’s strengths),” Soares said. “I feel like today, we didn’t focus on a lot of that, you know? The backdoors, they beat us on things that we messed up on. It might’ve been a lack of focus.”
Soares trailed off, shaking his head.
There were plenty who left the Lloyd Noble Center shaking their heads Saturday, after the Sooners twice coughed up nine-point leads.
Here are three other takeaways on the Sooners’ loss:
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Porter Moser: Locker room ‘not broken’
Porter Moser’s voice escalated steadily during his post-game press conference as he talked about the state of the Sooners following back-to-back losses — Tuesday’s home loss to Texas followed by Saturday’s nail-biter.
“This is not a broken locker room,” Moser said. “This is a locker room that’s hurting right now. They are crushed in there and they are going to — only one way to respond. I mean the last two days, I couldn’t have asked for them to respond better (after the loss) against Texas. I can tell you they responded every which way you’d want young men to respond. They played their tails off in practice. They were locked in. We didn’t get it done. But it isn’t because we’re sitting here (and) we’ve got a fractured locker room, attitude problems. We don’t have any of that, all right? And that’s what gives me absolute passion to know that we can still build wins on this thing.”
Soares’ voice didn’t raise, but the message was similar.
“I don’t know if we’ve gotten too comfortable or if we think we’re good now,” Soares said, pointing out how low the Sooners were picked in preseason polls. “We’ve got to get that chip back on our shoulder.”
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Rivaldo Soares comes up big
Soares hadn’t been much of a factor in OU’s scoring recently.
After averaging 7.7 points in the first 10 games, Soares had averaged just five over the last nine, with just one game in double figures.
But in the first half, when OU made their push Texas Tech jumped up by eight, Soares was a major factor.
Soares scored seven of his nine first-half points in a span of less than two minutes to help the Sooners jump up 30-21 after being down 17-9.
His biggest shot came when he hit a 3-pointer with just less than two minutes remaining in the second half after the Red Raiders had reclaimed the lead.
Soares finished with a season-high 19 points, hitting a 3-pointer as time expired to make it a one-point game.
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Sooners dig a hole early
The Sooners struggled to defend the lane early, as Texas Tech had early success driving to the basket.
The Red Raiders started 8 of 13 from the floor to take a 17-9 lead.
Oklahoma quickly responded, reeling off a 21-4 run to jump ahead by nine.
The Sooners hit back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers during a 12-0 start to the stretch, including one by Javian McCollum that turned into a four-point play after McCollum was fouled by McMillian in the corner.
OU defended better during the stretch, forcing the Red Raiders to settle for more outside shots as Texas Tech missed 12 consecutive shots — including seven layups.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma basketball falls short vs Texas Tech for second straight loss
