Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Auburn on February 24, 2026 , Win , 91, to, 79
Final
Men's Basketball
91
vs Auburn
79
University of Oklahoma Athletics
Sooners Host High Point And Bethune-Cookman This Weekend In Men's Hoops
December 13, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 13, 2001
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GAME INFORMATION
Ranked 24th and 22nd in the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls, respectively, Oklahoma (5-1) plays host to High Point (3-5) on Saturday at 7 p.m. CST inside Lloyd Noble Center. The game will air live on the Sooner Basketball Radio Network (flagship KOMA 1520 AM in Oklahoma City) with Bob Barry, Sr. (play-by-play) and Mike Houck (analyst) calling the action.
The Sooners turn around to entertain Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference member Bethune-Cookman (2-4) on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. following the OU women's game versus Illinois. The Oklahoma/Bethune-Cookman contest will also air live on the Sooner Basketball Radio Network.
HIGH POINT PROJECTED STARTERS F 33 Brent Halsch (6-5, 205, So.) F 42 Ron Barrow (6-6, 205, Jr.) F 40 Jay Wallace (6-7, 215, Sr.) G 10 Joe Knight (6-1, 185, Fr.) G 15 Dustin Van Weerdhuizen (6-2, 220, Jr.)OKLAHOMA PROJECTED STARTERS F 13 Aaron McGhee (6-8, 250, Sr.) C 21 Jabahri Brown (6-10, 210, So.) G 2 Ebi Ere (6-5, 215, Jr.) G 4 Quannas White (6-1, 190, Jr.) G 10 Hollis Price (6-1, 165, Jr.)
OKLAHOMA UPDATE
In the middle of their longest home stretch of the season - a six-game homestand - Oklahoma has won four straight contests. The Sooners are coming off a 71-67 overtime win over a good Louisiana Tech team on Saturday and are wrapping up final exams this week.
Junior guard Hollis Price scored a season-high 25 points against Louisiana Tech and now leads the team and ranks ninth in the Big 12 with his 17.3 points per contest. He also averages 3.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals per outing. Price has drained a team-high 17 three-pointers and is shooting .472 from long range. He also ranks first in the league and 14th nationally with his .938 (15-for-16) free throw mark.
Ebi Ere, the Big 12 Preseason Newcomer of the Year, ranks second on the team by averaging 15.7 points per game. The junior guard has scored in double figures in all but one contest and won Big 12 Rookie-of-the-Week honors last week after pouring in 29 in OU's 15-point win at Arkansas. Ere is also averaging 5.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.2 blocks. He has made at least one three-pointer in every game and owns a .929 (13-for-14) free throw percentage.
Senior forward Aaron McGhee has been extremely productive of late. Over the last four games, the 6-8 lefty is averaging 15.8 points and 10.3 rebounds. Two games ago versus St. Bonaventure, McGhee scored 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting and pulled down a career-high 19 boards. The 19 caroms fell four short of the Lloyd Noble Center record shared by Sooner greats Stacey King and Harvey Grant. McGhee, like Price and Ere, has been solid at the free throw line and boasts a .792 (19-for-24) mark.
Saturday's game will mark the anticipated OU debut by sophomore center Jabahri Brown. The slender 6-10, 210-pound U.S. Virgin Islands product began his career at Florida International before transferring. Brown is expected to boost the Sooners' defensive presence down low with his rebounding and shot-blocking ability. He will likely start in place of sophomore forward Johnnie Gilbert.
ABOUT HIGH POINT
High Point, located in High Point, N.C., is in its first year as a full-fledged NCAA Division I member. The Panthers were provisional members the past two seasons but were not eligible to compete in the Big South Tournament or for the automatic NCAA Tournament berth that comes with winning the league tourney title.
The Panthers are 3-5 on the young season and are coming off a pair of home losses against Delaware (78-63 Dec. 6) and Wright State (77-55 Dec. 8). Seven of the team's eight contests have been home games with the lone road affair resulting in a 63-59 loss at Auburn in the season opener. High Point's wins have come against William & Mary (63-57), Warren Wilson (91-42) and Eastern Kentucky (70-60).
Junior guard Dustin Van Weerdhuizen leads the Panthers in scoring, rebounding and steals with 16.0, 8.3 and 3.1 respective per-game averages. He has made a team-leading 16 three-pointers and is shooting .327 from long range. Freshman backcourt mate Joe Knight has already collected a pair of Big South Rookie-of-the-Week honors and is averaging 14.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and a team-high 3.1 assists. Knight scored 25 points in his first collegiate game at Auburn.
High Point is shooting .430 from the field, .264 from three-point land and .640 from the foul line. The Panthers are outrebounding opponents by a 35.4-31.6 count.
Jerry Steele is in his 30th season as High Point's head coach and 38th at the collegiate level. A member of the NAIA Basketball Hall of Fame, Steele is 463-410 (.530) at High Point and 614-484 (.559) overall.
SERIES WITH HIGH POINT
Saturday's game with High Point will mark the first matchup between the two schools. High Point has never faced a Big 12 team and has never played in the state of Oklahoma.
ABOUT BETHUNE-COOKMAN
Bethune-Cookman, located in Daytona Beach, Fla., will head to Norman with a 2-4 record after dropping a 68-55 decision at South Alabama Wednesday night. The Wildcats posted an 81-74 home win over Iona in their season opener and also won at Maryland-Eastern Shore, 69-55, on Dec. 1.
Junior guard Richard Toussaint is averaging 23.3 points per game to rank among the nation's leaders. He is shooting .495 from the field and .746 from the foul line, and is averaging an astounding 10.5 free throw attempts per contest. Toussaint is also averaging 4.7 rebounds, 1.3 steals and just 0.3 assists per game. Senior guard Brian Cox averages 12.5 points and is shooting a team-best .375 (9-for-24) from long range while senior Moses Cage averages a team-high 3.2 assists per outing. The Wildcats are shooting .432 from the field, .303 from three-point land and .626 from the free throw line.
Horace Broadnax is in his fifth year as a collegiate head coach, all at Bethune-Cookman. He owns a 38-80 (.322) career record and directed the Wildcats to a 10-19 mark a year ago.
SERIES WITH BETHUNE-COOKMAN
Sunday's game against Bethune-Cookman will mark the first between the two programs.
LOUISIANA TECH RECAP
Oklahoma survived its first overtime outing of the season as it outscored Louisiana Tech 11-7 in the extra session to post a 71-67 win Saturday at Lloyd Noble Center. The Sooners trailed by one at the break, 32-31, but looked to be in good shape midway through the second half after a 15-4 run put them up 51-41. The Bulldogs tied the score by the 2:40 mark, however, and Gerrod Henderson's three-pointer with 6.2 seconds left forced overtime. Ebi Ere and Quannas White both tallied five points in the extra frame to carry OU to the win. Hollis Price was 7-for-11 from the field, 4-for-6 from three-point land and 7-for-8 from the foul line to finish with a season-high 25 points. Ere and Aaron McGhee tallied 14 each while White chipped in with 10. Henderson scored 21 points to pace Louisiana Tech while Darrian Brown notched a double-double with 15 points and a game-high 12 boards. Oklahoma shot .411 from the field for the game but held the Bulldogs to a .365 figure.
LOUISIANA TECH LEFTOVERS
SAMPSON NAMED USA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ASSISTANT COACH
OU head coach Kelvin Sampson was announced Thursday as one of three assistant coaches of USA Basketball's 2002 World Championship Team that will compete in the 2002 FIBA World Basketball Championship for Men that is being held in Indianapolis, Ind., Aug. 29-Sept. 8, 2002. Sampson, San Antonio Spurs head coach George Popovich and Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery will serve as assistants for head coach George Karl (Milwaukee Bucks). The U.S. team is comprised of seven players thus far. They are Ray Allen (Milwaukee Bucks), Antonio Davis (Toronto Raptors), Michael Finley (Dallas Mavericks), Jason Kidd (New Jersey Nets), Shawn Marion (Phoenix Suns), Reggie Miller (Indiana Pacers) and Jermaine O'Neal (Indiana Pacers). Five more players will be named to the team at a later date.
THE JABAHRI BROWN COUNTDOWN ENDS
The Jabahri Brown Countdown will officially cease with the opening tip of Saturday's game against High Point. Brown, OU's 6-10, 210-pound sophomore center who has been practicing with the team but has been ineligible to play in games due to transfer rules, will see his first action of the season against the Panthers. A native of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Brown began his playing career at Florida International in 1999-2000 before transferring to Rose State College in Midwest City where he attended classes during the fall semester last year. He signed with OU last November and practiced with the Sooners during last year's spring semester. The athletic Brown will give Oklahoma a defensive presence Coach Sampson has been seeking in the middle for several years. Brown averaged 8.6 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots per game as a freshman at Florida International. He also competed this summer in the World University Games for the U.S. Virgin Islands and averaged 7.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.6 blocked shots.
SOONERS BACK IN THE POLLS
Oklahoma began the season ranked 23rd in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll and 25th in the AP poll, but barely dropped out of the top 25 in both for a couple of weeks. OU has returned, however, and is 22nd in the current coaches' poll and 24th in the media poll.
OU LEADS NATION IN FREE THROW SHOOTING
In the latest NCAA stats (games through Dec. 10), the Sooners rank first nationally in free throw percentage with their .809 mark. OU has traditionally been a sound free throw shooting team under Kelvin Sampson as six of his first seven Sooner squads finished first or second in the conference in the category. Last year, the Sooners paced the Big 12 with a .740 season mark.
Oklahoma's worst free throw performance this year was a .667 (8-for-12) effort at Michigan State in the second game of the year. Interestingly, four Big 12 schools (Oklahoma State, Texas, Colorado and Texas A&M) entered play Thursday with a season free throw mark below .667.
FIELD GOAL SHOOTING ON THE RISE
Oklahoma turned in a substandard shooting effort (.382) in its two exhibition games and posted a combined .355 field goal mark in its first two regular season contests. Over the last four games, however, the Sooners are shooting a much-better .474 from the floor. They recorded a season-best .532 mark Dec. 5 against St. Bonaventure and a .509 figure Nov. 28 against Central Michigan. OU now owns a .433 season field goal mark.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
McGHEE HEATS UP
Aaron McGhee, OU's 6-8, 250-pound senior forward who was a first-team junior college All-American in 1999-2000, struggled in the Sooners' first two games but has rebounded (literally) very well in OU's last four contests. McGhee, who averaged 12.9 points and 4.8 rebounds per game last season, averaged just 6.5 points and 3.0 boards in the Sooners' first two games this year. In OU's four games since, however, McGhee is averaging 15.8 points and 10.3 rebounds. He posted his first career double-doubles against Central Michigan (19 points and 11 rebounds) and St. Bonaventure (19 points and a career-high 19 boards) and had 11 points and seven rebounds at Arkansas and 14 points and four boards versus Louisiana Tech.
McGhee has upped his season averages to 12.7 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds per outing. He is shooting .409 from the field, .188 (3-for-18) from long range and .792 (19-for-24) from the foul line.
ERE A STEADY CONTRIBUTOR
Junior college transfer Ebi Ere, the Preseason Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, ranks second on the team with his 15.7 points per game and has posted double-digit point totals in all but one contest. He also ranks second on the squad with 5.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. Ere was named the conference's rookie of the week Dec. 3 for his performances against Central Michigan and Arkansas. The 6-5 junior guard averaged 18.0 points and 6.0 rebounds in OU's wins that week. Against Arkansas, Ere was 10-for-14 from the field and 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Ere was a second-team junior college All-American last year at Barton County (Kan.) Community College when he averaged 25.5 points and 7.6 rebounds.
PRICE IS RIGHT
Junior guard Hollis Price has shown no ill-effects from a severed triceps tendon sustained in his right (shooting) arm last March as he is averaging a team-high 17.3 points per game to go along with his 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals through six games. Price is shooting .472 (17-for-36) from three-point range and made a career-high six three-pointers in 10 tries in the season opener against Central Connecticut. The six treys doubled his previous career high while the 10 attempts also established a career most. The New Orleans, La., native did not commit a turnover in his first 83 minutes of play this year. Price spent most of the offseason rehabilitating his arm after an injury during OU's NCAA Tournament game against Indiana State last spring. He collided with ISU's Kelyn Block and had a piece of Block's tooth embedded in the arm. Price underwent three surgeries within the span of a week to irrigate the wound, remove the tooth and repair the severed tendon.
YOUTH IS SERVED
Of Oklahoma's nine players who have seen action in the team's first six games, only one has multiple years of Division I experience at Oklahoma - junior guard Hollis Price. Seniors Aaron McGhee and Daryan Selvy are in their second seasons at OU after transferring from junior college, as is true sophomore Johnnie Gilbert. Junior Jozsef Szendrei and freshman Blake Johnston redshirted last year and are in their first full season of Division I competition. Juniors Jason Detrick, Ebi Ere and Quannas White are all in their first season at OU after spending two years at the junior college level.
COURT IS IN SESSION
The Nov. 28 game against Central Michigan marked the first played on Lloyd Noble Center's new court by the Oklahoma men's team. The new $87,000 floor was supposed to be ready for the Sooners' season opener Nov. 12 but was shipped back to the manufacturer to correct the paint shade.
SOONERS SIGN ALEXANDER
The Sooners signed DeAngelo Alexander, a consensus top-50 national recruit from Midwest City High School, to a national letter of intent Nov. 16. Alexander is ranked by respected recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons as the country's 19th-best high school senior. The 6-5, 210-pound Alexander averaged 19.5 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.9 steals as a junior for Midwest City's Class 6A state champs last year. He shot .560 from the field, .400 from three-point land and .700 from the free throw line for the 26-2 Bombers. Alexander helped his team to a 26-2 mark and Class 6A state title as a sophomore as well.
"He's one of the best guards I've seen," said OU coach Kelvin Sampson of Alexander. "He combines, size, scoring ability and basketball I.Q. He's been extremely well coached and he possesses a great passion for the game - I've always been impressed with how much DeAngelo loves basketball. He's one of the few players in high school who can truly play all five positions. In college, he'll be a terrific wing guard or combo guard. He's a kid who will have the chance to step in his freshman year and be a major contributor."
PRESEASON PICKS
The Sooners were picked to finish in fourth place in the Big 12 in both the media and coaches' preseason polls behind Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma State. Texas, Iowa State and Colorado were predicted to finish fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively, in both polls.
Nationally, Oklahoma was picked as high as 16th (Blue Ribbon Yearbook and Dick Vitale) in preseason print and online publications. The Sooners were also tabbed 19th (ESPN.com), 21st (Basketball News) and 24th (Athlon and Street & Smith's). OU was ranked 23rd in the initial ESPN/USA Today Top 25 Poll and 25th in the AP version.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The 26-year-old Lloyd Noble Center is in the midst of a $17.1 million renovation and expansion project with the majority of the facelift to the existing arena recently completed. The renovation included a new ceiling, new and brighter "sports lighting" and the addition of retractable floor seating that has moved fans closer to the playing surface.
The expansion portion of the project will result in arguably the top collegiate basketball practice, training and office facility in the country. The OU men's and women's teams have each begun working out in new practice gyms and will soon have at their disposal new locker rooms, player lounges, film rooms, training rooms, meeting rooms, a hydrotherapy room, an X-ray and examination room, a weight room and coaching offices. The new 70,000-square-foot facility will also include a banquet room and a legacy lobby.
Oklahoma posted a 13-1 record at Lloyd Noble Center last season and is 92-16 (.852) in seven-plus seasons inside the building under Kelvin Sampson.
BOOK IT
Kelvin Sampson: The OU Basketball Story is now in bookstores. Written by Dallas Morning News' Steve Richardson and released in October, the book chronicles the Oklahoma head coach's journey from his childhood days in North Carolina to coaching stints at Michigan State, Montana Tech and Washington State, and to his current position at OU. The 269-page book is filled with interviews and accounts of former players, coaches and associates. Retail price is $18.95.
SOONER SUCCESS UNDER SAMPSON
OU BOASTS NATION'S FOURTH-LONGEST POSTSEASON STREAK
Oklahoma has made 20 consecutive postseason appearances (16 NCAA and four NIT), the fourth-longest streak among Division I programs. Only North Carolina (35 years), Georgetown (27) and Indiana (24) own longer postseason streaks. The last time Oklahoma did not compete in the postseason was in 1980-81.
MODEL OF CONSISTENCY
Oklahoma has registered a winning record in 24 of its last 25 seasons. No other Big 12 team can boast as many winning campaigns since the 1975-76 season as the Sooners. Entering the current campaign, OU had posted a 557-246 (.694) record over the past 25 years.
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