Oklahoma faces a tough road test as it looks to pull off its second consecutive Top 25 upset on Tuesday at No. 1 Auburn.
The Sooners (16-5, 3-5 SEC) dominated then-No. 24 Vanderbilt in a 97-67 blowout on Saturday in Norman. Freshman guard Jeremiah Fears racked up 21 points while Oklahoma’s top scorer, senior forward Jalon Moore (18.2 points per game), tallied 19 points and passed the 1,000-point mark for his career.
While Fears (16.1 ppg) has made a splash in his debut season, Dayton Forsythe is a freshman guard whose contributions don’t always show up in the box score. That wasn’t the case against Vanderbilt as he contributed season highs with 14 points and three steals.
“It energizes us,” coach Porter Moser said. “What he does is contagious. You see him coming off a baseline stagger screen getting his hand up and denying. Then diving on the floor, he makes it contagious because he gets his hands on so many things. On offense, he can cause some havoc because he can go downhill. He’s strong to make passes through contact and can knock down shots. There are just so many toughness plays he makes that he makes it contagious.”
But it’s one thing to beat No. 24 at home and another to knock off No. 1 on the road.
The Tigers (20-1, 8-0) ran their winning streak to 13 games with a 92-82 win at No. 23 Ole Miss on Saturday.
Each of the Tigers’ starters scored in double digits and leading scorer Johni Broome (18.3 points per game) tallied 20 points. The Tigers are 9-0 at home and are 11th nationally in scoring at 84.5 ppg. They rank third nationally in scoring margin at 18 points per game.
To beat Ole Miss, Auburn lit it up from 3-point range as it nailed 14 of 28 from behind the arc. For Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, it starts with the Tigers’ big men and their rebounding effort.
“We get an offensive rebound, we’d kick it out and, bang, we’d knock it in,” Pearl said. “We think our guys will make all their shots. They were open shots, not contested shots. We have two or three guys on the front line that play physically and they are hard to move out.”
Even though Chad Baker-Mazara had a quiet first half where he hit two 3-pointers and chipped in six points, he heated up when the Tigers came out of the locker room. Baker-Mazara finished with 18 points, shot 6 of 10 from the floor and connected on 4 of 6 3-pointers.
“He’s an incredibly passionate kid and an incredibly talented player,” Pearl said. “He’s not always going to be perfect. He’s going to be affected by things. You’ve got to leave him alone if he’s not playing great. Don’t make it worse by compounding it and he is going to get it together. He wants to win and we try to put the ball in his hands a lot. He’s also surrounded by other good players that can play efficiently, so there’s a pretty good blend there.”
The Sooners’ first SEC season got off to a rough start as they opened league play with four straight losses. They’ve since hit their stride and won three of their last four SEC games.
Moser said the continued maturation of Fears and Forsythe is impressive given the experience level of their opponents.
“To see two freshmen on any level, but on this level, come in and have the impact they’ve had is pretty special,” Moser said. “In this day and age, there are fifth-year seniors everywhere.”
–Field Level Media
