No. 5 Oklahoma 98, Texas Tech 72

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ Oklahoma put an emphatic stop to Texas Tech's 10-game winning streak. <br><br>The fifth-ranked Sooners used their defense and the shooting of guard Hollis Price to build an early

Saturday, January 12th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ Oklahoma put an emphatic stop to Texas Tech's 10-game winning streak.

The fifth-ranked Sooners used their defense and the shooting of guard Hollis Price to build an early lead and went on to a 98-72 victory Saturday, handing Bob Knight his first Big 12 Conference loss.

Price finished with a season-high 27 points and was 6-of-7 from 3-point range. Ebi Ere added 25 points and Jason Detrick had 17 as the Sooners (13-1, 2-0) won their 12th straight game.

``We just got kind of exploited every way we could be exploited as a team, I think by a team today much, much better than we were,'' Knight said. ``That's not a real hard equation to figure out. We just got beat by a lot better team today.''

The Red Raiders (13-2, 2-1) committed five of their 20 turnovers in the first 5 1/2 minutes, helping Oklahoma take a 16-4 lead. Price scored 12 of those points, half on 3-pointers.

It wasn't much of a game after that. The Red Raiders, who wound up shooting just 35 percent, cut the deficit to eight at the 11:25 mark of the first half, but Oklahoma pulled away from there to lead by 22 at halftime.

``We felt like we could transition on them,'' coach Kelvin Sampson said. ``Once we cleared the rebound, go with it.

``We made our runs tonight starting at the defensive end. Our conversion from defense and defensive rebounding to offense was very good.''

Tech, on the other hand, struggled with its ball handling to fall into the early hole.

``We really kind of sealed our fate right away,'' Knight said. ``The thing we didn't want to do and what we can't do as a team is turn the ball over.

``One of the things that we thought that we absolutely had to do was just make it a basketball game right away and get the tempo settled down, and we were never able to do that.''

Ere scored 20 first-half points on 8-of-10 shooting. He scored seven during a 9-0 run that made the score 29-11, then later had 11 of Oklahoma's final 13 points as the Sooners took a 50-28 halftime lead.

Price made two long-range jumpers early in the second half to help give Oklahoma a 58-30 lead. Oklahoma led 65-39 before the Red Raiders went on a 14-2 run to get within 67-53 with 12 minutes left.

But Oklahoma scored 15 straight after that. Detrick scored eight during that time and Price had five.

``The intensity level went back up,'' Price said of the 15-0 run. ``We got the right guys in and the intensity picked right back up, and that's what we fed on.''

Andy Ellis, the Red Raiders' leading scorer with a 17.9 average, had just eight on 2-of-7 shooting against Oklahoma. As a team, Tech was 22-of-62.

``We weren't ready to play,'' Ellis said. ``We've got to play better than that. That's not the team that we are.''

Powell had 16 and Andre Emmett scored 12 for the Red Raiders.

The 12-game winning streak is Oklahoma's longest since the 1989-90 season, which is also the last time the Sooners were ranked so high.