Sooners Shocked In Fort Worth, Fall To TCU In Regular Season Finale

Despite a furious rally, the Oklahoma Sooners were stunned in Fort Worth by TCU, falling to the Horned Frogs 70-67. <br />

Saturday, March 9th 2013, 7:27 pm

By: News 9


You can never have a great comeback unless you get really far behind. Unfortunately for the Oklahoma Sooners, they got a little too far behind Saturday afternoon against TCU.

A 3-pointer from Kyan Anderson gave the Horned Frogs a 25-point lead less than a minute into the second half, a lead that was too much for Oklahoma to overcome as TCU stunned the Sooners 70-67 in the regular season finale for both teams.

Oklahoma cut the lead to a single point twice, and had a wide open 3-point attempt to tie as time expired, but the Sam Grooms attempt clanked harmlessly off the rim as the buzzer sounded. The missed 3-pointer was a big trend for the Sooners on Saturday. Oklahoma missed all 16 attempts they took from behind the arc.

The loss doesn't necessarily eliminate the Sooners from the NCAA tournament, but it certainly puts them back on the bubble and makes the Big 12 tournament much more important than it was just days ago.

The Sooners, who came into Saturday with a chance to grab the No. 3 seed in the tournament with a win and an Oklahoma State loss, will be the No. 4 seed and take on Iowa State Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. While a loss wouldn't doom the Sooners, a win would all but assure the Sooners of an at-large berth. Unfortunately, all hopes of a decent seed are now gone.

Romero Osby led the Sooners with 19 points. Andrew Fitzgerald chipped in with 13 points and 11 rebounds off the bench. Buddy Hield, in his first extended action since injuring his foot against TCU scored 10 points and grabbed eight offensive rebounds.

TCU was led by Carlon Green's 18 points and Connell Crossland and Charles Hill Jr. scored 13 points each.

The Sooners fell behind early and never led the entire game. TCU jumped out to a 15-7 lead on a 3-pointer from Green. The Horned Frogs had its best offensive performance of the season, shooting 54 percent for the game and hitting 8-of-14 from 3-point range. The Horned Frogs came into Saturday shooting just 30 percent from outside this season.

Oklahoma cut the lead to 15-13, but TCU responded with a 19-1 run to make it a 20-point lead with 6:33 remaining in the first half. The Sooners went almost six minutes without a field during the stretch.

Trailing 44-22 at the break, the Sooners quickly gave up the 3-pointer to Anderson before mounting a major comeback.

The Sooners began to pound the ball inside to Osby and Fitzgerald to chip away at the lead, unable to hit anything outside of the paint. In fact, the Sooners hit two jump shots the entire game. Oklahoma scored 44 points in the paint and hit 19 free throws.

Oklahoma also clamped down on the defensive end, forcing TCU into terrible shots and turnovers.

A layup from Hill Jr. gave TCU a 56-36 lead. From there, the Sooners went on a 22-3 run, cutting the score to 59-58 on an Osby slam with 4:27 to play.

After a TCU missed free throw, OU fumbled the rebound out of bounds, allowing the Frogs to maintain possession. With 3:42 remaining, Green knocked down a 3-pointer to give TCU a four-point lead.

OU struggled offensively after that, but used defense to once again cut the lead to one. After a layup by Grooms, OU forced a five-second violation on the Frogs, and quickly scored on an Osby layup with 8.3 seconds left. However, Anderson hit two free throws for the final margin before Grooms' final miss.

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