By John Shinn
Tuesday night, Oklahoma arrived at Lloyd Noble Center with momentum. It, however, joined a 12-game home winning streak in evaporating in a 72-71 loss to Texas Tech.
The reason why the Sooners lost didn't take much dissection.
"Texas Tech played with more energy and better than us throughout the game," OU coach Jeff Capel said.
The Sooners' lack of energy was mystifying, considering the Sooners were coming off an upset victory against Texas and had a chance to climb above .500 in the Big 12 Conference standings.
To add to the rationale for added emotion, OU was honoring Blake Griffin Tuesday with a halftime celebration. Having last season's unanimous college basketball player of the year sitting courtside was thought to be a boost.
Instead, OU was lethargic early and couldn't gather itself until it was too late.
"We just didn't play fundamental defense and that's what got us beat," OU guard Willie Warren said.
There was more to it, though.
The Sooners (13-10, 4-5 Big 12) struggled to make shots. The 6-for-26 effort from 3-point range was too much to overcome for a team that has made its living making outside shots.
The woes were obvious late in the game.
OU trailed by as many as 12 in the second half, but had whittled its deficit to 1 with less than a minute to play.
Twice in the last 6 seconds, the Sooners had open 3-pointers to win the game. Warren got one off from the wing that missed right, but went out of bounds off the Red Raiders. Tommy Mason-Griffin got of another as the buzzer sounded. It also clanked off the rim.
"We had some pretty good shots and felt like we had the right people taking those shots," Warren said. "The ball didn't bounce our way."
Texas Tech (16-7, 4-5) made things go its way by riding its point guard. John Roberson scored a game-high 22 points, including 14 in the first half to help the Red Raiders gain the lead it never relinquished. Darko Cohadarevic added 12 point for Texas Tech and Mike Singletary finished with 10.
Warren, who looked healthy for the first time since suffering an ankle injury two days before OU's first meeting with the Red Raiders Jan. 23, finished with 18 points. Tony Crocker added 16 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Tiny Gallon finally broke out of his funk with 13 points off the bench.
The difference in the game was the Red Raiders' ability to shut down Mason-Griffin. The Sooner point guard was just 3-for-13 from the field and finished with nine points.
"We thought Mason-Griffin was going to be the key," Texas Tech coach Pat Knight said. "The kid has really come into his own these past couple weeks. We were able to slow him down a bit; that was huge."
The only bigger question was the question of why OU lacked energy until the final minutes. It was a game OU had to win, but it didn't play that way until it was down by 12 with late in the second half.
"We were able to execute on our end and get some baskets. The energy picked up," Capel said. "Our fans were trying to give us some energy throughout, and again I thought the last six minutes we game them something to cheer about."
The 34 minutes without were enough to get the Sooners beat.
John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com
