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
OU, Denver Meet for Trip to NYC
November 09, 2007 | Men's Basketball
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2K SPORTS COLLEGE HOOPS SECOND ROUND PREVIEW
Jeff Capel's Oklahoma Sooners will take on the Denver Pioneers in the second round of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer in Norman on Friday. The 7 p.m. CST game inside Lloyd Noble Center will follow a contest pitting East Central (0-1) against San Francisco (0-1) at 4:30 p.m.
Friday's OU/Denver contest will air on the Sooner Radio Network (flagship KOKC AM-1520 in Oklahoma City) with Bob Barry Sr. and Mike Houck announcing. The game will not be televised.
The winner of the OU/Denver game will travel to New York City for Nov. 15 and 16 championship round games inside Madison Square Garden. Other regional winners include Memphis (Oklahoma's would-be first opponent in New York), Connecticut and Gardner-Webb. The New York games will be televised by ESPN2.
TICKET INFORMATION
• Tickets for Friday's 2K Sports College Hoops Classic second round in Norman are available for $10 and $20 (one ticket is good for both games). 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.
• Tickets may be purchased at the OU Athletics Ticket Office on Friday (800-456-4668) or online at SoonerSports.com. Lloyd Noble Center ticket windows will open at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
• OU students may purchase tickets at the door (west entrance) for $5.
"NOTE" WORTHY
• Blake Griffin's 18 points Thursday 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).
• The Sooners have won 99 of their last 110 games inside Lloyd Noble Center and 54 of their last 55 home non-conference games.
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OKLAHOMA UPDATE
Brothers Blake and Taylor Griffin combined for 31 points and 19 rebounds as the Sooners posted a 71-55 season-opening home win over San Francisco on Thursday. Blake Griffin, playing in his first collegiate game, was 7-for-9 from the field and finished with team highs of 18 points and 13 rebounds. The freshman had a double-double by halftime with 12 points and 10 boards. Junior Taylor Griffin, who also had 12 first-half points, finished with 13 points and six rebounds. Each Griffin also added two assists, a block and a steal.
Trailing 25-20 with 9:53 remaining in the first half, Oklahoma issued a 20-2 run to go up 40-27 with 3:27 left and settled for a 40-30 halftime lead. OU's advantage never fell to single digits in the second half and the Sooners led by as many as 20 points (69-49) late in the game. OU shot .482 from the field for the game while holding San Francisco to a .368 mark and a .100 effort from 3-point range (2-for-20).
Sophomore guard Tony Crocker was 5-for-7 from the field and scored all 10 of his points in the second half. He added four rebounds and a pair of assists. Junior backcourt mate Austin Johnson netted seven points and recorded a game-high seven assists without a turnover.
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THURSDAY'S LEFTOVERS
• The game marked the earliest (Nov. 8) ever played by a Big 12 Conference team.
• Guard Cade Davis (six points in 27 minutes) and Blake 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.
• In his first regular season action since sustaining a season-ending knee injury last year (Dec. 28), sophomore Keith Clark played 13 minutes and registered six points, two rebounds and two blocks.
• Senior center Longar Longar, who averaged 4.0 assists in OU's two exhibition games, registered three on Thursday to go along with five points and four rebounds in just 16 minutes of action off the bench.
• OU won for the 21st time in its last 23 season openers and for the 28th time in its last 29 home openers.
PREVIEWING THE DENVER PIONEERS
Denver, which edged Division II East Central University Thursday in overtime, 76-75, is under the direction of first-year head coach Joe Scott. Scott spent the previous three seasons at Princeton where he guided the Tigers to a 38-45 record. Denver is coming off a 4-25 campaign in which it finished seventh in the Sun Belt Conference's West Division. The Pioneers enter the season with seven freshmen and only six returning letterwinners and two returning starters.
In Thursday's 2K Sports College Hoops Classic, Denver led 28-13 at halftime and was up 20 (43-23) with 11:52 remaining before surrendering a 38-18 second-half-ending run that sent the contest to overtime. The Pioneers trailed by five (72-67) with 1:29 left in the extra session but drew to within one on a 3-pointer by freshman Kyle Lewis with 15 seconds left. Just six seconds later fellow freshman Rob Lewis canned a pair of free throws for the final points of the game.
Rob Lewis finished with a team-high 19 points and was 12-for-13 at the free throw line. Kyle Lewis scored 14 points while senior forward David Kummer registered a double-double with 16 points and 13 boards. Adam Tanner, a senior center, also reached double figures in scoring with his 12 points.
OKLAHOMA-DENVER HISTORY
Oklahoma holds a 2-0 series lead over Denver with home wins on Feb. 7, 1947 (45-32), and Jan. 8, 1986 (109-64). OU advanced to the NCAA Tournament title game in 1947 and to the NCAA Tournament second round in 1986. It was ranked No. 7 in the AP poll when it played Denver during the 1985-86 season.
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YOUNG GRIFFIN GETTING PRESEASON PUB
He has played one regular season college game, but Blake Griffin is attracting plenty of national preseason publicity. The freshman forward is already 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 All-America squad (five players per team). This week, Rivals.com 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."
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. In their two exhibition games, the Sooners' top 10 scorers averaged between 16.5 and 22.5 minutes a contest. Eight players averaged at least 6.0 points a game in exhibition play, with six of them averaging 9.0 or more.
HOME IS WHERE THE "W" IS
Lloyd Noble Center has been overly kind to the Sooners, as they have won 44 of the last 50 games and 99 of the last 110 in the building. OU is 411-69 (.856) 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 54 of their last 55 non-conference home games (and 62 of their last 64). 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).
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