Three takeaways from Oklahoma’s loss to No. 22 in Louisville

Jennie Baranczyk Driver is never out of any game.

By accepting no. 22 in Louisville in the SEC/ACC Challenge, Oklahoma dug no. 11 a hole Wednesday.

OU trailed by 12 points at halftime and by as many as 17 points in the first half, but the Sooners stormed back in the second half to knock off the Cardinals 78-72 at the KFC Yum! Center.

Oklahoma first went on a 7-0 run to put pressure on Louisville, then put together a 9-0 run in the closing moments of the game to take the lead.

Although the Sooners have struggled at the free throw line throughout the early stages of the season, OU hit clutch free throws to ice the victory.

The 17-point comeback moved OU to 7-1 on the year and was the biggest rally since the Sooners erased a 19-point deficit to beat Utah in 2021.

The Sooners nearly pulled off an improbable upset against No. 8 Duke, forcing overtime after coming from a massive deficit against the Blue Devils.

OU made his life difficult again on Wednesday.

Baranczyk’s team trailed by as many as 17 in the first half, but Oklahoma never quit.

By limiting turnovers in the second half, the Sooners were able to mount up defensively and lock down Louisville, eventually embarking on a 9-0 run to take the lead with 2:21 left in the game.

Jayda Curry’s deep jumper tied the game up again, but Payton Verhulst drilled a contested shot in the middle of the court to regain the lead on his former team and put OU up 72-70 with 49 seconds left.

Guard Nevaeh Tot then sank a pair of clutch free throws with 27 seconds left to seal the win in unorthodox fashion.

Erasing a massive deficit is usually the result of a late 3-point barrage, but the Sooners slowly chipped away by getting stops and hitting 2s on the other end of the floor to avoid losing a second straight game.

Oklahoma should have been well out of Wednesday’s contest in the first half.

The Sooners failed to take care of the basketball, committing 18 turnovers in the first half alone. Louisville initially wanted to slow the game down, but OU’s mistakes allowed the Cardinals to come out on a run.

And typically this season, the Sooners have been able to mitigate turnover problems with lockdown defense.

But OU struggled in the boards.

The Sooners surrendered 17 offensive rebounds, which Louisville converted into 12 second chance points.

Baranczyk’s team is one of the most explosive offenses in college basketball, firing on all cylinders, but the combination of turnovers and rebounds allowed the Cardinals to attempt 19 more shots from the field, which was almost too much for Oklahoma to overcome .

The Sooners were thrown out of some different lineup combinations early as well.

Raegan beer picked up his first foul two minutes into the game, prompting Baranczyk to go to the bench early and substitute Liz Scott into the game.

Scott then got into foul trouble himself, which led to further mixing and matching in the lineups throughout the first half, and Oklahoma never seemed to get into a rhythm.

Then an off night from last year’s Co-Big 12 Player of the Year Skylar Vann further complicating the Sooners’ efforts.

She didn’t hit her first shot until the 7:52 mark, putting more pressure on her teammates to carry the scoring burden early.

Verhulst, the reigning SEC Player of the Week, carried momentum from his triple-double in OU’s last outing against Duke and led the offense with 21 points and seven rebounds, holding the Sooners off long enough to get back into the game.

Sahara Williams added 15 points and seven rebounds, and Beers finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds in the win.