OU basketball roars past South Carolina to snap four-game skid in SEC play

Posted by author January 18, 2025 Basketball

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NORMAN — As he led a fastbreak off a Jalon Moore block, Dayton Forsythe surveyed the court.

Forsythe, the true freshman guard, found a streaking Duke Miles with a crosscourt pass before Miles hit Forsythe with a trailing lateral for what would be a deep 3-pointer.

He didn’t hesitate and found the bottom of the net, awaking a previously dormant Saturday Lloyd Noble Center crowd. Before Forsythe’s momentum-shifting shot it was a five-point game.

“He’s definitely been a big X-factor for us,” guard Kobe Elvis said. “A lot of people don’t understand the value that he has. I don’t think he even understands the value that he brings into the game sometimes, he just doesn’t know what doesn’t know because he’s just young.”

Oklahoma never looked back, finishing on a 23-11 run from that point on and snapping its four-game losing streak on Saturday.

The Sooners defeated South Carolina 82-62 at the Lloyd Noble Center for their first-ever SEC victory. The Gamecocks fell to 0-5 in SEC play this season.

With the win, OU avoided losing three consecutive home games for the first time since coach Porter Moser’s first season at the helm.

“The understatement of the year is how bad we needed that,” Moser said, “to get that narrative of getting the first one out of the way, getting our confidence back up and to play winning basketball.”

Moore, the fourth leading scorer in the SEC entering the game, led Oklahoma with 22 points and eight rebounds. He shot 60% from the field, knocking down 6 of his 10 shot attempts.

Elvis, who has transitioned from a starter to a role player off the bench the past two games, added 12 points and four 3s.

Projected top-10 NBA Draft pick Jeremiah Fears scored 16 points, grabbed nine rebounds and dished eight assists. After struggling to begin conference play, Fears has played better the past two games.

“It’s been two good games obviously,” Fears said. “My teammates have done a great job of just helping me stay motivated and confident in my game, just trying to help anyway they can.”

The Sooners held South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles, a projected first round pick who scored 25 points against Auburn, to 11 points. He played only 22 minutes and fouled out.

While OU struggled taking care of the ball, it also forced 16 Gamecock turnovers and scored 19 points off those.

“We talked about it at halftime,” Fears said. “We knew that was basically what was keeping them in the game, just our turnovers and how many points they had off our turnovers. So in the second half, we made a big emphasis to take care of the ball.”

Here are three takeaways from Oklahoma’s win:

Both programs combined for 23 turnovers in the first half.

For a three-minute stretch when Oklahoma surrendered the ball six times in three minutes, it seemed like no matter what lineup Moser tried, the result was the same.

The offense was log jammed and it turned the ball over 11 times in the first half. The Sooners settled down a bit in the second, turning the ball over just once and scoring 48 points.

“That’s the narrative of this team, it was better winning basketball,” Moser said, “when you cut your turnovers down. It’s been a theme for us these last two days. We an old school company mission statement, we need to play better winning basketball to win games.”

The key? OU got the ball into the paint, scoring 22 points and getting to the free throw line 15 times in the second half. Moore got to the line 11 times alone in the game.

Moser’s team has proven its a second half team, almost erasing a 23-point deficit against Texas on Wednesday.

“After last game, we talked about it, and we all felt like, ‘Why do anything different than we did the last 15 minutes of the Texas game?'” Forsythe said. “I feel like today we did that. We played like the last 15 minutes, and we gave everything we had and the result was the result.”

Dayton Forsythe was a tone-setter off the bench during the loss to the Longhorns.

The Dale native, who less than a year ago was aiming to lead his high school team back to the state tournament, put on a show on Saturday and got the crowd back into the game.

“He comes in and he plays just so hard,” Elvis said. “He’s crashing the boards and making good shots, he’s making good reads, he just plays extremely hard and it’s contagious, it affects me. It affects the guys coming off the bench, and it also affects the starting guys coming back in saying, ‘Hey, I need to play just as hard as him.'”

Forsythe brought the same energy on both ends of the floor, finishing with five points and two rebounds.

“They all know Dayton’s energy,” Moser said. “Last game, he brought us energy, but for him to knock that (3-pointer) down, it’s fun to see how excited they are for him because of how hard he plays.”

Saturday’s game was a must-win for Oklahoma.

With the win, OU is out from the bottom of the SEC standings. With Arkansas, which is 0-4 in conference play, next and a rematch with Texas A&M after that, the Sooners are aiming to build on their first victory in weeks.

“It was definitely a big win for us,” Fears said, “especially going on that losing streak. We did a great job of just being together and pushing each other in practice.”

The Gamecocks are ranked 90th in NET but it’s a start. Can Moser lead his team on a run the next few weeks and get back into the tournament conversation?

Oklahoma gets a week off before it travels to face the Razorbacks at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The game will air on ESPN 2.

The Razorbacks are 0-4 in SEC play and face Missouri at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

“There are tons of opportunities in this league,” Moser said. “We needed to log in that first one so we could move forward.”