Oklahoma vs. Jackson State Men's Basketball Preview

GAME INFORMATION
Ranked eighth in the latest AP and ESPN/USA Today polls, Oklahoma (7-0) plays its seventh home game of the season when it hosts Jackson State (2-4) on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. inside Lloyd Noble Center. The contest will air on the Sooner Radio Network (flagship KOMA 1520 AM in Oklahoma City) with Bob Barry, Sr. (play-by-play) and Mike Houck (analyst) calling the action. The game will be televised in Oklahoma by the Sooner Sports Network (KWTV channel 9 in OKC) with Chuck Cooperstein (play-by-play) and Wayman Tisdale (analyst) handling the call.

A limited number of $15 upper-level reserved tickets are still available. The OU Athletics Ticket Office phone number is (800) 456-4668 or (405) 325-2424.

OKLAHOMA UPDATE
Kelvin Sampson's youngest team ever is one of two unbeaten Big 12 squads (Iowa State is the other) and has already notched victories against Tulsa, Michigan State and Purdue. The 7-0 Sooners are off to their best start in four years and are just three wins from securing career victory No. 400 for Sampson. Oklahoma's last four opponents (Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Michigan State, Purdue and Prairie View A&M) have averaged 50.5 points and 25.3 turnovers per game, and have shot a combined .300 from the field.

Point guard Drew Lavender has picked up his play of late and was named the Phillips 66 Big 12 Player of the Week on Tuesday, becoming the first freshman to win the honor in the league's seven-plus-year history. The 5-7, 155-pounder averaged 13.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists in wins against Purdue and Prairie View A&M last week, and hit the game-winning shot with 1.1 seconds left against the then-No. 16 Boilermakers. Lavender is averaging 10.3 points and 4.6 assists per contest. He has led OU in assists in all seven games.

Senior wing Jason Detrick, who earned Big 12 Player of the Week acclaim for his efforts against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Michigan State, leads the team with his 12.6 points and 2.8 steals per game. He gets to the free throw line for 6.8 attempts per outing and is shooting .794 from the charity stripe. Sophomore guard De'Angelo Alexander averages 11.9 points and 4.7 rebounds, and is shooting a team-high .391 from three-point distance. He averaged 15.3 points in OU's first four games but is averaging 7.3 over the last three. Another guard, junior Jaison Williams, has been extremely valuable. Coming off the bench in each game, Williams is averaging 8.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.9 steals.

On the inside, senior center Jabahri Brown averages 9.6 points, a team-high 5.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game, and also has five blocked shots. Brown is shooting a team-best .543 from the field and owns a .773 (17-for-22) mark at the foul line after entering the year a .590 career free throw shooter. Sophomore forward Kevin Bookout averages 8.8 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. Bookout did not play against Prairie View A&M, however, as he rested a sore right shoulder. He is expected to return to the court against Jackson State. Junior forward Johnnie Gilbert has been solid off the bench. The lefty averages 6.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and a team-high 1.9 blocks per game. Gilbert is averaging 2.7 rejections over the last three outings.

ABOUT JACKSON STATE
Jackson State, Oklahoma's third and final Southwestern Athletic Conference opponent of the year, will visit Norman with a 2-4 record. The Tigers posted a 10-18 record last year and finished in sixth place with a 9-9 league mark. This season, Jackson State has beaten South Alabama at home (76-65) and Montana on the road (71-64), and has fallen in road games to Louisiana Tech (77-63), Jacksonville State (71-63), Portland State (63-46) and Utah State (67-42 on Thursday). Against Utah State, the Tigers shot .313 from the field and .263 from three-point territory. JSU also committed 20 turnovers and was outboarded 39-29.

Senior guard Ishmael Joyce averages a team-high 14.5 points per game and had 30 in the win at Montana. Joyce also averages 2.0 assists and 2.2 steals per game, and has a team-high 10 three-point buckets. Senior guard K.C. Cavette scored a team-high 12 points at Utah State and averages 13.3 points, 2.3 assists and a team-high 2.3 steals per outing. Cavette's 25 points in the season opener against South Alabama were a team high. Another double-digit scorer, senior center Leonard Taylor averages 11.7 points and a team-best 8.8 rebounds while shooting .651 from the field. Taylor has recorded games of 14 (versus South Alabama) and 15 (Montana) rebounds.

The Tigers are shooting .382 from the field, .299 from three-point land and .695 from the foul line. Opponents have shot .420 from the field and .333 from beyond the arc.

In his first year as Jackson State's head coach, Tevester Anderson owns a 105-56 career mark. He spent the past five years at Murray State and earned a 68-64 victory against OU in Norman in 1998-99.

SERIES WITH JACKSON STATE
The Sooners are 3-0 against Jackson State and all three games have been played in Norman during the Kelvin Sampson era. OU posted wins in 1997-98 (75-62), 1995-96 (99-68) and 1994-95 (91-70).

PRAIRIE VIEW A&M RECAP
Oklahoma cruised to an 83-56 victory over Prairie View A&M on Saturday by limiting the Panthers to .323 field goal and .167 three-point shooting. The Sooners, who recorded .478 and .333 respective figures, also forced 22 Panther turnovers while committing 13. Drew Lavender led OU in scoring for the second straight game with 13 points and notched a career high with seven assists. De'Angelo Alexander added 11 points while Johnnie Gilbert and Jaison Williams came off the bench to supply 10 each. Gilbert also had eight rebounds and two blocks. Jabahri Brown approached a double-double with eight points and a season-high 10 boards. Oklahoma scored the game's first eight points and led 41-25 at the half. The Panthers didn't score their first field goal of the second half until 11:52 remained, making the score 60-32. OU's largest lead was 32 points (75-43). Prairie View's Kevin Cooper scored a game-high 16 points while Roderick Riley had 14. The Panthers outrebounded the Sooners by a 44-42 count.

PRAIRIE VIEW A&M LEFTOVERS
Jason Detrick started his first game of the season in place of freshman Lawrence McKenzie and Larry Turner made his first career start in place of Kevin Bookout. Turner scored a career-high nine points while Bookout sat out to rest his shoulder.
Johnnie Gilbert had two blocks to give him three straight games with multiple rejections.
OU shot below .600 from the free throw line (.545) for the second straight game.

AN OU WIN OVER JACKSON STATE WOULD...
Give Oklahoma an 8-0 record, its best start since the 1999-00 squad began 9-0.
Give the Sooners 44 wins in their last 45 games at Lloyd Noble Center (.977) and 53 in their last 55 (.964). It would also improve OU's home record under 10th-year head coach Kelvin Sampson to 126-17 (.881).
Give Oklahoma 30 straight non-conference home victories dating back to a 72-57 loss to Cincinnati on Dec. 22, 1999.
Up the Sooners' non-conference record (including postseason games) since the start of the 1999-2000 season to 58-10 (.853).

APPROACHING 400
Head coach Kelvin Sampson needs just three more wins to reach 400 for his career. Only two other Big 12 coaches have more career victories than Sampson (Texas Tech's Bob Knight has 818 and Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton has 729). Sampson is 221-81 at Oklahoma and has averaged 28 wins over the last four years.

STOUT SOONER “D”
Oklahoma's defense has been superb the last four games after inauspicious performances in the first three. Over the last four outings, Prairie View A&M, Michigan State, Purdue and Prairie View A&M have shot a combined .300 from the field and .213 from three-point range. They have also committed a collective 101 turnovers for a 25.3 average. On the season, Oklahoma is giving up just 57.4 points per game (ranks second in the Big 12). Last year, the Sooners gave up 60.0 points per game, their fewest in 25 years.

NOT AFRAID OF REJECTION
Through seven games, the Sooners have registered 43 blocked shots, an average of 6.1 per contest. No OU team in history has averaged at least 6.0 rejections per game and last year's squad averaged 3.6. Junior Johnnie Gilbert leads Oklahoma and ranks eighth in the Big 12 with his 1.9 blocks per game. He has eight rejections over the last three games. Senior center Jabahri Brown has 86 blocks to rank seventh on the school's career list while Gilbert ranks ninth with 77.

LOVING LAVENDER
Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year Drew Lavender became the first frosh and the shortest player to ever win Big 12 Player of the Week honors when he reeled in the award this week. The 5-7 point guard averaged 13.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists while shooting .500 from the field and .500 from long distance in wins over Purdue and Prairie View A&M. He also hit the game-winning shot with 1.1 seconds left to give OU a 47-45 victory over the Boilermakers. On the year, Lavender is averaging 10.3 points, 4.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game. The last Oklahoma freshman to average as many points per game for an entire season was Jeff Webster (18.3 ppg in 1990-91). Since Oklahoma assist statistics were first kept during the 1976-77 season, no Sooner freshman has averaged 4.6 assists for an entire campaign (Terry Evans averaged 4.4 per game as a frosh in 1989-90).

WELCOME BACK, DETRICK
Senior guard Jason Detrick, who redshirted last year after averaging 9.2 points per game during OU's 2001-02 Final Four campaign, had to wait two additional games to get back on the court this season. Detrick missed the Sooner Invitational Nov. 21-22 because he was nursing an abdominal injury sustained during the team's exhibition trip to Costa Rica in August. Extremely limited in preseason practice, Detrick has made a splash in his five games and was named Big 12 Player of the Week two weeks ago for his efforts against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Michigan State. He is averaging a team-high 12.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.8 steals in 26.4 minutes per contest on the season, and is shooting .450 from the field and .794 from the free throw line. Detrick is also averaging 5.4 free throw makes and 6.8 attempts per outing. His 16 makes and 19 attempts against Michigan State on Dec. 6 were the most by an OU player in 181 games.

FRESH FACES
Making their Oklahoma debuts in the season opener against Eastern Washington were freshmen Brandon Foust, Drew Lavender, Lawrence McKenzie and Jimmy Tobias, and junior Jaison Williams. Through seven games, the fivesome has accounted for 211 of OU's 538 points (39 percent), 70 of its 109 assists (64 percent) and 29 of its 38 three-pointers (76 percent). Redshirt freshman center Larry Turner has also seen action in six games and scored a career-high nine points last Saturday against Prairie View A&M. Six of OU's 12 roster players are freshmen (walk-on Kellen Sampson is the sixth) while eight are freshmen or sophomores.

STARTING FRESH(MEN)
Against Eastern Washington on Nov. 21, Drew Lavender and Lawrence McKenzie became the third and fourth freshmen under 10th-year head coach Kelvin Sampson to start the first game of a season. The others were Kevin Bookout last season and guard Prince Fowler in 1994-95, Sampson's first OU campaign. Lavender's 12 points against Eastern Washington were the second most by a Sooner freshman in a season-opening game under Sampson (forward Ryan Humphrey had 17 against Jackson State on Nov. 15, 1997). McKenzie's 19 points versus Oral Roberts Nov. 22 were the most by an OU freshman since Hollis Price tallied 20 against Texas Tech on Feb. 23, 2000. The 19 points represented the third most by a freshman under Sampson (center Bobby Joe Evans scored 20 at Oral Roberts on Dec. 21, 1995). Lavender and McKenzie have both started all six games this year.

FINE AT THE LINE
Despite shooting .500 (15-for-30) from the free throw line over the past two games, Oklahoma owns a .699 season mark to rank third in the Big 12. OU has traditionally been a sound free throw shooting team under Kelvin Sampson as seven of his previous nine squads have finished first or second in the Big Eight/Big 12 in percentage. Last year's squad finished third in the Big 12 with a .693 figure.

TOP 10 AGAIN
Oklahoma's streak of 30 straight weeks in the AP poll's top 10 came to an end five weeks ago when the organization ranked the Sooners No. 14 in its preseason poll, but OU is back at No. 8 this week. The Sooners have now been ranked in the last 38 AP polls and in 71 of the last 75. Kelvin Sampson's teams were ranked No. 3 in the past two seasons' final AP polls.

BREAKING 80
With its 83-56 win over Prairie View A&M last Saturday, Oklahoma improved to 114-10 (.919) when scoring at least 80 points under 10th-year mentor Kelvin Sampson. OU was 7-0 last season under the circumstance and has won 53 of its last 55 games (.964) when scoring 80 or more.

HOME IS WHERE THE “W” IS
Lloyd Noble Center has always been extremely kind to the Sooners. Oklahoma, which posted a perfect 16-0 mark at home in 2001-02 and finished 15-1 last season, is 360-60 (.857) inside the building since it opened for the 1975-76 campaign. The Sooners are 125-17 (.880) at home under 10th-year head coach Kelvin Sampson and have won 43 of their last 44. OU had won 37 straight at home before losing to Texas in last year's regular season finale. The 37-game home winning streak was OU's longest since winning 51 in a row in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was the nation's longest streak at the time. It also stands as the longest streak in Big 12 history (Kansas held the previous league record with 33 straight home wins).

NORTH, TO ALASKA
The University of Alaska-Anchorage recently announced the 2004 Great Alaska Shootout field and Oklahoma is among the seven teams. Joining the Sooners and UAA Seawolves in the Nov. 24-27 event will be Alabama, Minnesota, Utah, Wake Forest and Washington. A yet-to-be-named eighth team will complete the field.

OU SIGNS A PAIR OF STANDOUTS
Sooners head coach Kelvin Sampson inked two recruits to national letters of intent during the early signing period. Post players Taj Gray and Longar Longar will join Oklahoma for the 2004-05 season.

Gray, a 6-9, 240-pound forward who is regarded as one of the nation's top junior college players, hails from Wichita, Kan., and attends Redlands Community College in El Reno, Okla. The preseason first-team All-American led Redlands to a 32-3 record and NJCAA Tournament berth last year when he averaged 15.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.0 blocked shots per game. He also shot 68 percent from the field. Gray was the NJCAA's Region 2 Player of the Year and earned second-team All-America acclaim. A Wichita East High School product, Gray was Kansas' Class 6A Player of the Year as a senior in 2001-02. He led his 24-3 team to the state title and was named the state tournament's MVP.

A Sudan native who moved to the United States as a high schooler, Longar stands 6-11 and weighs 210 pounds. He attended John Marshall High School in Rochester, Minn., and is now at Laurinburg (N.C.) Institute, the nation's No. 1-ranked preparatory school. Longar, who originally signed with Oklahoma in November 2002, was a consensus top-75 recruit as a senior last year and led his 24-4 John Marshall squad to the Elite Eight of the state tournament, the school's best-ever finish. He averaged 18.0 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.7 blocks en route to earning first-team All-State honors.

SOONER MISCELLANY
The Sooners made their ninth straight NCAA Tournament appearance last year and 18th in the last 21 years.
Oklahoma is 16-3 over the last three postseasons (9-0 in Big 12 and 7-3 in NCAA Tournaments).
The Sooners have won more NCAA Tournament games the past two years (seven) than they did in their previous 10 appearances combined.
The Sooners have won at least 26 games each of the last four seasons.
The Sooners' scoring defense mark of 60.0 points per game last year marked their lowest in 25 years.
Oklahoma is 18-8 in overtime games under Sampson and has won 12 of its last 14. OU went 3-0 in overtime affairs last season (beat Texas Tech twice and Kansas State).
Sampson's .732 winning percentage is the best in OU history (Billy Tubbs ranks second at .716).
OU shot .439 from three-point range over last season's final 17 games (136-for-310).

SIX STRAIGHT 20-WIN SEASONS
The Sooners have compiled six straight seasons of at least 22 wins under head coach Kelvin Sampson. Last year marked the 21st 20-win season in school history and seventh under Sampson (this is his 10th year).

NINE STRAIGHT...AND COUNTING
Oklahoma has qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of Kelvin Sampson's nine years in Norman. Only seven other schools have made the “Big Dance” each of the past nine seasons (Arizona, Cincinnati, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland and Stanford).

KELVIN'S SCHOOL OF DANCE
Last year's NCAA Tournament appearance marked Kelvin Sampson's 10th straight as a head coach (nine with Oklahoma and one with Washington State). That string ranks fourth among current coaches. Only Arizona's Lute Olson (19 straight), North Carolina's Roy Williams (14) and Cincinnati's Bob Huggins (12) have taken teams to more consecutive NCAA Tournaments. Kentucky's Tubby Smith and Maryland's Gary Williams have also been to 10 straight “Big Dances” while Stanford's Mike Montgomery has been to nine.

OU OWNS NATION'S SECOND-LONGEST POSTSEASON STREAK
Oklahoma has made 22 consecutive postseason appearances (18 NCAA and four NIT), the second-longest streak among Division I programs. Only Indiana (26 years) owns a longer postseason streak. The last time OU did not compete in the postseason was in 1980-81.

UNDER KELVIN SAMPSON...
OU has a 118-26 record the last four-plus years for the NCAA's second-best winning percentage (.819).
OU has posted an 80-32 (.714) Big 12 Conference record.
OU has made nine consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
OU has advanced to the Sweet 16 (1999), Final Four (2002) and Elite Eight (2003).
OU has recorded a 124-17 (.879) record at Lloyd Noble Center and has won 42 of its last 43 home games.
OU has won at least 26 games each of the last four seasons and at least 22 games each of the last six years.
OU has won three straight Big 12 Tournaments and has made five title game appearances in the last six events.
OU has won 24 of its last 28 games against Big 12 opponents (including Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments).

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