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Desperation time has now totally set in on the Sooners who need a couple of marquis wins here late in the season to reach bubble consideration status. There's been very little wrong with OU at home in the Lloyd Noble Center where they are 13-2 straight up including 5-1 in conference. Oklahoma is also a gaudy 5-1 against the spread at home versus Big XII foes with all of the victories coming by 7 points or more. Revenge motive is activated here as Texas not only rolled OU 80-69 in Austin back on January 13th but they shot 54.7% from the field which is by far the highest percentage yielded by the Sooners all season. Loghorns starters connected on 60% of their shots (27-45) with freshman phenom Kevin Durant recording a double-double. Only one Oklahoma opponent has shot better than 44.4% against them in this building (Villanova 45.5%) so expect the defense to be very focused and put the clamps down on ;Texas. The 'Horns youthful lineup has also seen a strong home-road dichotemy shooting above 45% just twice in true road games all season. Must note that in the prior meeting between these teams, Oklahoma was without their 6'11" junior center Longar Longar who happens to be the team's leading FG% shooter (58.5%), rebounder (7.6 per game) and scorer (11.8 ppg). His presence here provides a much more imposing deterent for Durant so look for the UT rookies production to diminish somewhat this time around. First year head coach Jeff Capel has been able to exact some revenge here at home the second time around versus conference foes Oklahoma State and Texas Tech so look for him and his team to complete the hat trick with a victory of 8+.
Oklahoma -2
Oklahoma -2
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