Oklahoma struggled from the field and was plagued by turnovers, but neither prevented the Sooners from rolling to an 81-59 victory over Belmont Saturday night.
Terrell Everett saw to that.
The senior Sooner guard narrowly missed a double-double with 17 points and nine assists in OU’s third straight win to begin the season.
“I was looking to help my teammates out tonight and they made plays,” Everett said. “If I got into the lane and I felt two people I would dish it off. My teammates made a lot of big plays and hit their open shots tonight.”
Although, if they had made a few more, Everett could have easily handed out more than nine assists.
The Sooners shot a season-low 41.5 percent (27-for-65) and were only 4-for-17 from 3-point range.
“Terrell is a basketball player,” OU coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Is he a point guard? Yeah, when he’s at point he is. He’s just a basketball player … The beauty of his game is he can be whatever you want him to be.”
Saturday, he was a mixture of point guard and shooting guard that was too much for Belmont to contain. Everett was also 6-for-12 from the field and 5-for-6 from the free-throw line.
But he wasn’t the only reason OU was able to dispatch the Bruins (2-1) with relative ease.
Taj Gray nailed a down double-double with 15 points and 14 rebounds. Michael Neal added 14 points, David Godbold finished with 12 and Kevin Bookout tossed in 11.
The Sooners finished with a 52-30 edge on the glass and outrebounded Belmont by 20 in the second half.
“One of the things that makes us a good team is our depth,” Sampson said. “That means we can wear down teams in the second half. I thought we really wore Belmont down on the boards in the second half.”
Freshman Taylor Griffin finished with eight rebounds and Bookout pulled down six.
The Bruins trailed by as many as 18 in the first half but got within 47-35 on Josh Goodwin’s 3-pointer early in the second half.
Everett scored six points during a 14-0 run that lifted the Sooners’ lead to 61-35 with 12 minutes to play.
Belmont was never a threat from that point forward.
Boomer Herndon scored a game-high 18 points to lead the Bruins. Justin Hare finished with nine.
Belmont entered the game shooting 60 percent from the field and 62 percent from 3-point range, but OU held the Bruins to 39 percent (23-for-59) shooting and 37.5 percent (6-for-16) from 3-point range.
OU Sports
Everett leads Sooners
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