AUSTIN -- Texas will not win the Big 12 Conference regular season championship since Kansas clinched it for the 12th straight season Saturday. The Longhorns do not have the nation's best player, an award that will likely go to Oklahoma guard Buddy Hield.
Texas might be the team playing the best at the right time and is certainly a squad no one wants to play, as evidenced by the 25th-ranked Longhorns' 76-63 win over No. 3 Oklahoma on Saturday before a capacity crowd at the Erwin Center.
The Longhorns got 18 points from point guard Isaiah Taylor and scored 22 straight points during a run beginning with just seven and a half minutes to play to rally past Oklahoma despite 33 points from Hield.
Texas trailed 58-51 after a jumper by Hield with 7:29 to play but then burst into overdrive while Oklahoma went scoreless for almost seven minutes. By the time Hield scored again for the Sooners with 37 seconds to play, Texas held a 73-61 lead and the game was in the books.
"A lot people doubted us as a team coming into this game but if we play like we did today and keep working hard, we can beat anyone in the country," said Taylor, who also had five assists and did not commit a turnover. "We were able to get stops, we were making our free throws and making plays and you could feel the swell of the crowd from their support."
Guard Javan Felix and forward Connor Lammert added 14 points for the Longhorns (19-10, 10-6 in Big 12 play) while guard Kerwin Roach Jr. hit for 12 points and guard Eric Davis Jr. scored 10. Center Prince Ibeh led both teams with 10 rebounds.
"Obviously we are team that's gotten better and that's piqued some people's attention," Texas coach Shaka Smart said. "We've been in a lot of close games, and a lot of times the game is there to win or lose at the six-minute mark."
Hield scored at least 30 points for the ninth time this season for Okahoma (22-6, 10-6 in Big 12) but had only 10 in the second half. Guard Jordan Woodard added 15 points for the Sooners.
"We didn't handle the late-game situation very well," Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said. "The end was kind of a blur, quite frankly. We didn't have many good possessions during that late stretch. Texas whipped us on the boards, especially late in the game. We have to play 40 minutes of great basketball every game and we only played about 35 today."
Texas got the first five points of the game from Lammert but the rest of the first half belonged to the Sooners, specifically, Hield.
Hield, the erstwhile Player of the Year frontrunner, scorched Texas for 23 points in the half on 8-of-12 shooting and looked like the best player in the college basketball. He was 4 of 7 from 3-point territory in the first half, and his inside baskets included a dunk, a nifty reverse layup and a putback after an offensive rebound. Hield also led both teams in rebounds in the opening half with five.
Even with all Hield's superlatives, the Longhorns managed to stay within 40-37 at halftime. Texas shot 50 percent from the floor in the first 20 minutes, with Lammert and Davis leading the Longhorns with eight points apiece.
"The goal was not to hang around, the goal was to make shots and play good defense and do the things we needed to do to win," Felix said.
Oklahoma cruised through the first 12 minutes of the second half, answering every Texas charge with one of its own. Then it all came apart as the Longhorns make all the plays and Oklahoma couldn't make any stops.
"The last six minutes of the game is winning time. We practice making things happen at that time," Lammert said. "I didn't know we scored 22 points in a row. There was not one big play that spurred us. We just made stops and kept working."
NOTES: Texas is 4-0 this year at home against Associated Press top 20 opponents, including a 2-0 mark against AP top 10 opponents in Austin. That includes victories against No. 3 North Carolina, No. 10 West Virginia and No. 17 Iowa State. ... Longhorns freshman G Eric Davis Jr. has reached double figures in scoring in each of the past four contests while averaging 12 points in 25 minutes per game, hitting 14 of 33 field goals, including 9 of 14 from 3-point range and 9 of 10 free throws. ... Oklahoma beat Texas 63-60 in Norman in the two teams' first meeting this season. ... OU entered the game ranking second nationally in 3-point field-goal percentage (43.1 percent) by hitting 286 of 663 shots from downtown. Oklahoma's all-time record for 3-point field-goal percentage in a campaign is 41.4 percent in 1986-87. ... OU's quartet of G Isaiah Cousins, G Buddy Hield, F Ryan Spangler and G Jordan Woodard have each started every game (96 total) for the Sooners over the past three seasons, tallying 384 combined starts during that span.
