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 Go For Third Win Monday
November 11, 2007 | Men's Basketball
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GAME PREVIEW
Oklahoma (2-0) will play its third straight home game to open the season when it hosts Alcorn State (0-1) on Monday at 7 p.m. CST at Lloyd Noble Center. The Sooners outscored San Francisco and Denver by an average of 23.0 points in wins last Thursday and Friday while Alcorn State lost at Southeastern Louisiana by 18 points Friday.
Monday's contest will air on the Sooner Radio Network (KOKC-AM 1520 in Oklahoma City; KTBZ-AM-1430 in Tulsa; Sirius channel 121) with Bob Barry Sr. and Mike Houck announcing. The game will be televised by the Sooner Sports Network (KAUT channel 43/Cox 16 in OKC; Cox 3 in Tulsa) with Bob Carpenter and Charlie Spoonhour announcing. Additionally, an Internet webcast on SoonerSports.com will be available (an "All-Access" subscription is required).
TICKET INFORMATION
• Tickets for Monday's game are available for $10 and $20. The $10 seats are located in the upper north and south sections of Lloyd Noble Center. The $20 seats are located in the upper east and west, and lower north and south sections.
• Family packs are available for Monday's game. For $10, fans get a game ticket, a hot dog, a soft drink and a coupon for a free T-shirt (minimum purchase of four tickets required).
• Tickets for OU students are $5 at the door (west entrance).
• Tickets may be purchased online at SoonerSports.com or on Monday at the OU Athletics Ticket Office (800-456-4668). Lloyd Noble Center ticket windows will open Monday at 5:30 p.m.
"NOTE" WORTHY
• OU issued double-digit first-half scoring runs in both of its first two games. It used a 15-0 run against San Francisco to go ahead 40-27, and went on a 16-0 spurt versus Denver to go up 31-14.
• Oklahoma held opponents to 59.6 points a game last year, the lowest figure since the 1977-78 season (a span of 29 years). Through two games this year, OU is surrending 52.5 points a contest.
• Oklahoma's season opener against San Francisco marked the earliest game (Nov. 8) ever played by a Big 12 team.
• The Sooners have won 99 of their last 110 games inside Lloyd Noble Center and 54 of their last 55 home non-conference games.
• OU has recorded 26 consecutive winning seasons, more than any other Big 12 program. Kansas ranks second (24) and Oklahoma State ranks third (19).
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OKLAHOMA UPDATE
The Sooners enter Monday's game with a 2-0 record after claiming the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic Norman Regional crown last Thursday and Friday. OU beat San Francisco 71-55 in the opener before downing Denver 80-50. Jeff Capel's squad shot .538 from the field over the two games and posted a .425 mark from 3-point range (17-for-40). It held its foes to .400 field goal and .212 3-point shooting (7-for-33). The Sooners, who also forced 16.0 turnovers per contest, will play the event's championship rounds this Thursday and Friday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. They will face No. 3 Memphis on Thursday at 8 p.m. CST and either Connecticut or Gardner-Webb on Friday at 5:30 or 7:30 p.m. Both OU games will be televised by ESPN2.
Brothers Blake and Taylor Griffin are Oklahoma's leading scorers on the young season, averaging 16.5 and 12.5 points a game, respectively. Blake, a freshman forward who was a McDonald's High School All-American last year, was named the regional MVP on Friday night after shooting .765 from the floor (13-for-17) and averaging 8.0 rebounds over OU's two contests. Prorated to 40 minutes a game, he is averaging 27.5 points and 13.3 rebounds. Taylor, a junior forward, owns a .600 field goal mark (9-for-15) and has made two of his four 3-point attempts (he was 2-for-21 from 3-point range all of last season).
Sophomore guard Tony Crocker is 9-for-13 from the field (.692) and 4-for-6 from 3-point range (.667), helping him to average 11.0 points per game. Crocker has played a team-high 27.0 minutes a contest. Junior back-up point guard Omar Leary scored 14 points on Friday and ranks fourth on the team by averaging 8.5 points a game. A first-team junior college All-American last year, Leary is 5-for-7 from 3-point range (.714).
Three Sooners - senior center Longar Longar, sophomore forward Keith Clark and freshman guard Cade Davis - average 6.5 points an outing. A 22-game starter last year, Longar has come off the bench to also average 6.0 rebounds in 17.5 minutes a contest. Clark is averaging 14.5 minutes a game after missing last season's final 20 games (knee injury). Davis has started both games and has made all five of his free throw attempts.
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FRIDAY'S LEFTOVERS
• Oklahoma shot .600 from the field against Denver, its best mark since posting a school-record .661 figure against Baylor on Feb. 26, 2005 (a span of 68 games). It also made 13 3-pointers on 23 attempts (.565), its most since canning 13 against Colorado on Feb. 25, 2004 (a span of 101 games).
• Tony Crocker made his first four 3-point attempts of the game and finished 4-for-5. The four treys were a career high.
• Omar Leary came off the bench to supply 14 points in 21 minutes of play. He was 4-for-6 from long range.
• After playing just one minute against San Francisco the night before, freshman guard Tony Neysmith logged 22 minutes against Denver (eight in the first half). He did not attempt a shot but grabbed three boards and added two assists.
• Ahead 15-14, the Sooners used a 16-0 run to go up 31-14 over a span of 4:23.
PREVIEWING THE ALCORN STATE BRAVES
Monday's game will be the second of the season for Alcorn State, which lost 72-54 at Southeastern Louisiana on Friday. The Braves, who return only 38 percent of their scoring from last year's 11-19 squad, struggled with shooting in their opener as they posted .397 field goal, .222 (4-for-18) 3-point and .267 (4-for-15) free throw figures. They were outrebounded 42-36 and also committed 17 turnovers.
Sophomore point guard Troy Jackson scored a game-high 20 points in 31 minutes of play on Friday on 10-for-18 shooting. Jackson attended Laurinburg (N.C.) Institute, the same prep school Oklahoma's Longar Longar attended in 2003-04. Senior forward Alex Owumi, Alcorn State's third-leading scorer last year (8.3 ppg) when he made a team-high 26 3-pointers, had 10 points, eight boards and two assists against Southeastern Louisiana. Junior forward Jarvis Williams added nine points in the opener on 3-for-3 3-point shooting. Williams started 25 games last year and averaged 4.5 points to rank sixth on the team.
Samuel West is in his sixth year as a collegiate head coach, all at Alcorn State. He owns a 37-80 (.316) record.
OKLAHOMA-ALCORN STATE HISTORY
The Sooners beat Alcorn State 75-56 on Nov. 17, 2000, in the teams' only previous meeting. In a game that served as OU's season opener, forward Aaron McGhee recorded 29 points and nine rebounds in his Oklahoma debut. Sophomore guard Hollis Price notched his first career double-double with 10 points and 10 assists. OU forced 26 turnovers (to its own 12) and attempted 23 more field goals.
A BREATH OF FROSH AIR
• Forward Blake Griffin's 18 points last Thursday against San Francisco were the most by an OU freshman in his collegiate debut in 22 years (center Stacey King netted 22 off the bench in the first game of the 1985-86 season against UC Santa Barbara).
• Guard Cade Davis (six points in 27 minutes) and Griffin became just the second OU freshman pair to start a season opener in the last 24 years. Prior to 2003-04 when guards Drew Lavender and Lawrence McKenzie did it, a freshman tandem had not started the opening game of a season since guard Tim McCalister and forward Darryl Kennedy in 1983-84.
FINDING HIS FREE THROW STROKE
After going 19-for-39 (.487) from the free throw line during OU's four-game exhibition trip to Canada in September and 4-for-7 (.429) in the team's exhibition games Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, freshman forward Blake Griffin is 7-for-10 (.700) in the regular season. Griffin shot .578 from the line as a high school senior last year.
YOUNG GRIFFIN GETTING PRESEASON PUB
He has played two games as a collegian, but Blake Griffin is already attracting plenty of national preseason publicity. The freshman forward is listed by FOXsports.com senior college basketball writer Jeff Goodman as the country's seventh-best post player and is a member of Goodman's fourth-team preseason All-America squad (five players per team). Last week, Rivals.com also slotted the 6-10, 243-pounder at No. 6 on its list of top 10 impact freshmen.
Wrote Goodman, "(He's) one of our favorite kids in the country and a guy who's been overlooked when the talk turns to the top frosh. He's strong and versatile - although the brunt of his damage will be done down low."
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DEPTH CHARGE
After the 2006-07 season saw only eight Sooners play regular minutes for the majority of the year, Jeff Capel appears to have the luxury of a deeper bench in 2007-08. Through two regular season games, OU's top nine scorers average between 14.5 and 27.0 minutes a contest (a 10th player, Tony Neysmith, averages 11.5 minutes). Seven players average at least 6.5 points a game, with three of them averaging 11.0 or more.
HOME IS WHERE THE "W" IS
Lloyd Noble Center has been overly kind to the Sooners, as they have won 45 of the last 51 games and 100 of the last 111 in the building. OU is 412-69 (.857) in the building since it opened for the 1975-76 campaign. The Sooners have posted home winning streaks of 51 games (1987-90) and 37 games (2001-03). The 37-game streak is a Big 12 Conference record (the league's first year was in 1996-97).
HOME COURT NON-CONFERENCE RULE
The Sooners have won 55 of their last 56 non-conference home games (and 63 of their last 65). Last year, visiting Villanova posted a 67-51 win in Norman for OU's first home defeat in a non-conference game since Dec. 22, 1999 (Cincinnati).
BIG APPLE TRIP ON THE HORIZON
Oklahoma will travel to New York City later this week for the championship rounds of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. The Sooners will take on Memphis, ranked No. 3 in both major polls, on Thursday at 8 p.m. CST before meeting either Connecticut or Gardner-Webb on Friday at 5:30 or 7:30 p.m.
Memphis beat Tennessee-Martin (102-71) and Richmond (80-63) to emerge out of its own regional. Connecticut also hosted a regional, defeating Morgan State (69-65) and Buffalo (82-57). Gardner-Webb won the Lexington Regional by beating Alabama A&M (69-55) and host Kentucky (84-68).
All of the games in New York will be televised by ESPN2 with Dan Shulman, Dick Vitale and Doris Burke announcing.
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