Loyola Runs but Can’t Hide in 136-103 Loss

The Game of the ‘90s, as it was called in some parts, lived up to its billing Saturday at Lloyd Noble Center, but not for nearly as long as many had expected.

Loyola Marymount stayed with No. 7-ranked Oklahoma during the first half, but when the smoke cleared, the Sooners had raced to a 136-103 victory before a crowd of 11,354.

It was a pairing of the highest-scoring teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. last season. Loyola came into the game leading the nation once again, with an average of 116. The Sooners were ranked fourth, averaging 103 points.

The teams played to a virtual standoff for a half, with Oklahoma leading, 64-63. But the Sooners outgunned the Lions, 72-40, in the second half, keyed by a defensive change at halftime.

“This is the kind of game that excites people,” Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs said. “They (expected) a lot of records. I didn’t, really. The thing that pleased me was they said we couldn’t run at their pace. This was a shootout for fastest gun in the West.”

The Lions are still averaging 112 points a game but are giving up 117. Oklahoma is now scoring 107.

Said Oklahoma center Stacey King, who had 28 points, 23 rebounds and 6 blocked shots: “At halftime, we decided that this is for bragging rights. We wanted to keep them down. We wanted to keep them under 100. We’re a little disappointed they got over 100 at the end.

“They were talking a lot of stuff before the game that we couldn’t run with them, that they were in the best shape. We wanted to show who was in the best shape. A game like that you forget you’re tired.”

Loyola forgot to forget. Relying on 3-pointers from Jeff Fryer and Enoch Simmons and the inside play of center Hank Gathers, the Lions traded leads with the Sooners for most of the first half, holding 7 short-lived advantages.

They were still within a basket, 67-65, early in the second half when the Lions wilted and the Sooners ran away, led by guard Mookie Blaylock’s harassment of several Loyola ballhandlers and scoring bursts by King, Tyrone Jones and William Davis.

Oklahoma rapidly increased its lead to 78-67 and steadily pulled away from there.

Loyola got 27 points and a career-high 18 rebounds from Gathers, and 28 points apiece from Fryer and Simmons--personal bests for both--but no other Lions reached double figures.

Tubbs’ adjustment at halftime--switching from a full-court press to a half-court, man-to-man defense with Blaylock pressuring the ball--did the trick.

“A one-point game isn’t our idea of what’s OK,” Tubbs said. “The adjustments allowed us to do a little better job on the boards, forced a few easy turnovers and allowed Stacey to block a few shots.”

Blaylock finished with a career-high 31 points, while Jones and Davis had career bests of 33 and 21 points, respectively. Blaylock also equaled his NCAA record with 13 steals and his personal best of 12 assists.

“I thought we played pretty well in the first half; we just had trouble sustaining,” Loyola Coach Paul Westhead said. “We were playing pretty well till we just ran out of gas.

“(Oklahoma) had good pressure, and when we tired a little bit, their pressure got better. They seemed to have a lot of run in them. Blaylock just seems to be tireless. He does all the hard-nosed things, over and over.”

Tubbs compared Blaylock’s game to a Magic Johnson-type performance. “Mookie almost had . . . what would you call 5 doubles?” he said. “Let’s see--points, steals, assists . . . He had 5 rebounds. And he had 7 turnovers.”

The Sooners improved to 6-1. Loyola, playing the toughest part of its schedule, fell to 1-3.

And if it wasn’t the game of the ‘90s, Westhead said, call it “the half of the ‘90s. I think this was a game of keeping what you started out to do. Oklahoma started at a high pitch and stayed there. We were at an equally high pitch for a half, then couldn’t sustain it. We’ll be OK.”

For now, as it says on their license plates, Oklahoma is OK. But Loyola was KOd.

“It was definitely fun,” Gathers said. “If I had to, I would do it all over again.”