Sooners Cruise Past Oral Roberts, 84-68

Starting two sophomores and a pair of freshmen, Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson know his No. 14 Sooners will be young this season.

In Saturday night's finals of the Sooner Invitational, the young guys continued to pay off with freshmen Drew Lavender scoring 16 points and Lawrence McKenzie adding 19 to help Oklahoma beat Oral Roberts 84-68.

In all, Oklahoma's freshmen accounted for 40 points.

Sophomore De'Angelo Alexander sealed tournament MVP honors with a 17-point performance and Oklahoma (2-0) won its fourth Sooner Invitational Tournament.

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Oral Roberts (1-1) lost to Oklahoma for the eighth consecutive time.

"We're improving. Obviously, we have a long way to go," Sampson said. "You can't judge this team game-by-game. You kind of have to look ahead of them. Tonight we played well in spurts, we didn't sustain anything, but that will come."

Leading by 17 going into the second half, Oklahoma failed to convert on its first seven possessions, turning the ball over four times. Oral Roberts cut Oklahoma's lead to eight when Schuyler Thomas hit a free throw with 12:20 remaining.

Oral Roberts outscored Oklahoma 41-40 in the half, but was outscored 33-25 after Thomas' free throw. After a 30-percent shooting effort in the first half, Oral Roberts shot 42 percent in the second half.

"I'm proud of how we fought back," Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton said. "OU is going to be a great team this year and I thought their freshmen played well."

Oklahoma pushed its lead to 19 points in the first half before Oral Roberts broke a seven-minute scoring drought when Thomas hit a left-handed hook shot with 1:58 remaining. During the scoreless stretch, the Golden Eagles squandered 15 consecutive possessions, failing to score for 7:31.

Alexander's 12 points in the first half helped Oklahoma to a 44-27 halftime lead.

Ken Tutt led Oral Roberts with 17 points. Thomas finished with 16 for the Golden Eagles. Caleb Green was named to the all-tournament team for Oral Roberts.

Both Lavender and McKenzie were all-tournament selections.

"We learned a lot from this weekend," McKenzie said. "We still need to improve on a lot of things, but we will be able to fix those things and be solid throughout the season."

Oklahoma outrebounded Oral Roberts 46-34 with Jaison Williams pulling down a game-high nine rebounds for the Sooners.