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March 21, 2013

Shinn extra: Sooners say waiting is the hardest part of NCAA tourney

By John Shinn The Norman Transcript

PHILADELPHIA — Oklahoma arrived in town Wednesday and acclimated themselves with the city and Wells Fargo Center by Thursday. It went through a practice at the Palestra on the University of Pennsylvania campus earlier in the day and OU’s shootaround at Wells Fargo Center was slated to begin at 5:40 p.m.

One of the unfortunate parts of the Sooners’ second-round game in the NCAA tournament is having to kill a lot of time during the day. The 10th-seeded Sooners (20-11) won’t face seventh-seeded San Diego State (22-10) until around 8:20 Friday night.

“It’s the hardest part — waiting,” OU coach Lon Kruger said. “Fortunately, you have plenty of entertainment with other games going on. We’ll have a shootaround and all the normal game-day activity, but we’ll back it up a couple or three hours because we are playing so late. We’re playing and that’s what counts. We’ll play whe

never.”

The Sooners have played games that tipped off after 8 p.m., three times this season. It beat Texas, 73-67, at Lloyd Noble Center Jan. 21. They squandered a 22-point second-half lead in the 92-86 loss to the Longhorns Feb. 27 in Austin. The last late start was OU’s home finale against West Virginia March 6. OU rolled to 83-70 win in that game.

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