Sooners' Rally Falls Short In Home Loss To Iowa State

News9.com

NORMAN, Oklahoma – OU came into the game against Iowa State with an obvious game plan: stop ISU's leader scorer, Royce White.

While the Sooners executed that part of the game to perfection, it was the rest of the game that hurt them.

The remainder of the Cyclones shot the lights out in a 77-70 victory against Oklahoma on Saturday, dropping the Sooners to 3-7 in conference play and 13-9 overall.

Royce White was averaging 14 points and 10 rebounds per game for the Cyclones, but only attempted one field goal in the entire game against OU.

The forward's only bucket of the game came on a dunk with 1:40 remaining in the game, which put his team up 73-67. But he also passed out of double teams well, dishing out seven assists to teammates in the win.

Though White was a non-factor on offense, the rest of the Cyclones shot the ball well both from the field (48 percent) and especially from beyond the arc, making 15-of-30 3-pointers in the game.

Andrew Fitzgerald was big for the Sooners in the game, scoring 27 points on 11-of-19 shooting.

The Sooners did well to give themselves a shot at the end of the game after falling behind by as many as 10 points.

Despite Iowa State leading by just two at halftime, it busted out of the gate in the second half with a 12-4 run to hold a 50-40 lead six minutes into the period.

The Sooners began to slowly chip away at the lead until back-to-back 3-pointers from Steven Pledger cut it back down to two.

Carl Blair followed it with a quick layup to tie the game for the first time in the second half at 56.

But that was as close as Oklahoma would come as ISU controlled the tempo for the final seven minutes of the game and hit big shots when it needed them.

OU owned the glass in the game at a 36-25 margin, thanks in large part to 11 rebounds from Cameron Clark.

Romero Osby and Steven Pledger joined Fitzgerald as the other two Sooners in double digits, but no OU player outside of those three managed more than four points.

Forward Melvin Ejim led Iowa State with 21 points.

The Sooners have lost two straight conference games and do not get a break this week. They will take on No. 4 Missouri in Norman on Monday night with a 6 p.m. tipoff.