How do you like me now: Oklahoma sends No. 21 BYU home with 82-66 loss

PROVO — BYU basketball's first .500 mark in the toughest college basketball conference in the country was short-lived.

Javian McCollum poured in 20 points, and Milos Uzan had 16 points and four assists as Oklahoma handed No. 21 BYU a 82-66 loss Tuesday night at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Rivaldo Soares supplied 12 points and six rebounds, and Jalon Moore had 11 points and six rebounds for the Sooners (17-6, 5-5 Big 12).

Fousseyni Traore led BYU with 21 points and five rebounds, and Dallin Hall supplied 17 points, three rebounds and five assists for the Cougars, who had won two in a row and three of their previous five.

Spencer Johnson supplied 10 points, four rebounds and four assists for the Cougars (16-6, 4-5 Big 12).

Rated No. 25 in KenPom and No. 31 in the NET, the Sooners had lost three of their previous four games, including a 74-63 setback Saturday at UCF. But in the words of the late, great country music superstar and diehard Oklahoma fan Toby Keith, who had a courtside seat reserved in his honor Tuesday at the Noble Center: How do you like me now?

It was Oklahoma's second win over an Associated Press Top 25 opponent this season, and the first since a 72-70 win Nov. 24 over then-No. 23 USC in San Diego.

"We're really disappointed," BYU coach Mark Pope told BYU Radio after the game. "First of all, congratulations to Oklahoma; they've gone through a rough stretch, and they needed to come win this game. It wasn't great basketball on either side, but I did think it was good effort. We just didn't play well, but not for lack of trying."

The No. 5 3-point defensive team in the country met the team that takes the second-most 3s nationally, but neither team led by more than three until Hall drained a pair of 3s to lift the Cougars to a 31-25 advantage with 4:53 left in the half.

Traore had 11 points and four rebounds on 5-of-9 shooting in the first half, and Hall connected on three 3-pointers for 9 points and three assists. But Milos Uzan had 9 points at the break for Oklahoma, including a game-tying drive with two seconds remaining en route to the 34-34 halftime stalemate.

Jalon Moore capped a run of four-straight makes with a 3-pointer to lift the Sooners to a 46-44 edge with 14:01 to play, and Godwin stretched the lead to four with a putback basket two minutes later as the Cougars opened the second half shooting just 4-of-11 from the field and 1-of-2 from deep.

The Sooners led by as much as 7 while shooting better than 50% in the second half. BYU's eight-man rotation couldn't measure up despite Traore's big night as starting center Aly Khalifa missed his second straight game with an illness.

"It just felt like we couldn't find answers that we needed defensively, in ball-screen defense. It was pretty simple, but we couldn't find the right personnel package to actually execute it," Pope said. "That was frustrating, and tonight I thought there was some frustration on the offensive end that carried over to the defensive end. We had so many six-inch looks at the rim, and for some reasons those attempts bounced out."

Noah Waterman, too, looked visibly ill, though the 6-foot-11 forward from Savannah, New York, posted eight rebounds and an assist to go along with his first points in a true road game, a 3-pointer in the second half.

That was before Uzan stretched the Sooners' lead to double digits, 71-61, with 3:14 left to help Oklahoma begin to pull away for good.

But the Cougars shot just 9-of-22 on layup or close-range attempts, and their eight 3-point makes are just one more than the season-low in falling one game below .500 at the midway point of the Big 12 season — amid a first half of league play where availability has been one of the most strained abilities at BYU, with injury deficits that included Khalifa, Traore, Trevin Knell, Jaxson Robinson and Dawson Baker, the former UC Irvine scoring wing who was lost for the season to foot surgery.

"I do believe there is a karma and a rhythm to this game, and you feel like that stuff usually regresses toward the mean," Pope said. "We've been on an insane side of this, wondering minute to minute who is going to be available. Hopefully we have a regression to the healthy mean; that will bode really well for us moving forward."

The Cougars are back home Saturday to host Kansas State. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. MST on ESPN2.

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