BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel’s gut told him what little NCAA Tournament experience his team had needed to be on the floor and be on the floor early Friday night.
The sixth-seeded Sooners only suited up three players who’d been a part of March Madness, and only David Godbold had really been a factor in the program’s three tournament games since 2005.
Trusting the gut paid huge dividends in OU’s 72-64 victory over 11th-seeded Saint Joseph’s in the first round of the East Regional at BJCC Arena.
Godbold scored a career-high 25 points and led the Sooners into the second round for the first time in three years.
There wasn’t much doubt the senior guard was going to be a huge factor for OU. He drew Saint Joseph’s leading scorer, Pat Calathes, on the defensive end.
He came up big there as well, holding Calathes to seven points on 2-for-11 shooting.
“I just wanted to come out with a lot of energy,” Godbold said. “I knew the other four guys always bring energy. So, I wanted to make sure I played up to their level, and I think I did a good job today.”
That might have been an understatement.
St. Joseph’s doubled center Longar Longar and forward Blake Griffin just about every time they touched the ball in the post. Hawks coach Phil Martelli was worried about one of OU’s guards going off without the attention.
He thought Tony Crocker, who scored nine points, might be the one to put the knife into his team. Godbold wasn’t on the radar.
“If you study their numbers, and their wins, their third scorer has always been Crocker. We studied it enough to know that it was Crocker,” Martelli said. “We actually started the game with our post double team being off of Godbold. We didn’t know that Godbold would start until 20 minutes before the game.”
The Hawks never really adjusted.
OU (23-11) closed the first half on an 18-3 run and had a chance to blow Saint Joseph’s out of the building in the second half.
Godbold hit three of his five 3-pointers and scored 11 points in the first 3 minutes of the second half to give the Sooners a 49-30 lead with a little less than 16 minutes left.
It was a position few expected OU to be in. The Sooners were a fashionable pick to suffer an early upset after struggling in last week’s Big 12 tournament and suffering a a 28-point loss to Texas in the semifinals.
“A lot of people were saying that Saint Joseph’s was supposed to upset us,” Griffin said. “It kind of gave us some fire and to win it feels even better.”
The Sooners had one of their best shooting games of the season, hitting 57.1 percent (24-for-42) from the floor and going 18-for-26 from the free-throw line.
Longar finished with 14 points and Griffin added 12. Austin Johnson added 10 points to go along with five of the Sooners’ 14 assists.
Still, they had to hold off a furious second-half charge to advance.
The Hawks (21-13) scored on seven straight possessions to cut their deficit to 65-61 on Ahmad Nivins’ basket with 3:16 left.
Rod Ferguson led Saint Joseph’s with 21 points. Nivins added 14 and Darrin Govens tossed in 12.
“We knew they would make a run, but we stuck together, kept everyone on the same page and kept battling,” Longar said.
The Sooner center had a dunk and Griffin followed with a pair of baskets to lift OU’s lead back up to eight points with 2 minutes to go and Saint Joseph’s didn’t get much closer.
“We feel good about this, but we’re not satisfied,” Capel said. “We have another good team coming in here on Sunday.”
The Sooners face third-seeded Louisville, which topped 14th-seeded Boise State Friday night, at 4 p.m. Sunday for a berth in the Sweet Sixteen.
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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Sooners hold on to advance
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