Oklahoma Sooners Basketball: OU overcomes slow start to top UTSA, 85-67, in season opener

It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing all the way, but the Oklahoma Sooners are 1-0 after an 85-67 win over the UTSA Roadrunners.

Tuesday night marked the OU debut of two fresh faces, Austin Reaves and De’Vion Harmon (as well as a few others)

Reaves sat out last season after transferring to OU from Wichita State following his sophomore year. Meanwhile Harmon, a Denton, Texas native, was the No. 5 point guard in the class of 2019 according to 247Composite.

Both Reaves and Harmon finished the game with a team-high 23 points and provided a glimpse into what the near future of Lon Kruger’s backcourt could look like.

The Sooners stumbled out of the gate shooting a combined 11-30 from the field and and 2-13 from three in the first half. However, whatever Kruger told his team in the halftime locker room seemed to work, as back-to-back three pointers from Harmon sparked a 23-5 scoring run to open the second half.

OU never looked back.

Junior Brady Manek added 16 points despite missing all five of his three-point attempts while Jamal Bieniemy led the team with 11 rebounds and five assists.

It’s hard to take too much away from this game. The slow start was likely due to early season nerves, but the second half scoring outbursts from Reaves and Harmon could be a sign of big things to come for this team. It’s tough to really get a feel for the ceiling of this team without Kristian Doolittle in the lineup, but the senior will be back for this weekend’s game against Minnesota after

The Sooners will get their first semi-test of the year as they travel to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers this Saturday. The game tips off at 7 p.m. CT and will be televised on the Big Ten Network (Yeah, it’s the same time as the football game. Maybe record this one and watch it on Sunday).