Sooners Smack Down Arizona

There were seven minutes and 32 seconds remaining in the game and, with Oklahoma in the middle of a game-breaking scoring run, Sooner forward Daryan Selvy followed Luke Walton through the key during a break in play and began blowing exaggerated kisses at Arizona’s playmaking small forward.

Selvy, a reserve who picked up Walton as a defensive assignment midway through the second half, may as well have been kissing the Wildcats goodnight and goodbye.

The No. 2-seeded Sooners, propelled by a strong second half, punished the No. 3-seeded Wildcats, 88-67, in a West Regional semifinal before 18,040 at Compaq Center on Thursday.

Oklahoma (30-4) will meet 12th-seeded Missouri on Saturday in the Sooners’ first Elite Eight appearance since falling to Kansas in the 1988 championship game.

A first half of finesse between the Sooners and Wildcats degenerated into a second half of trash-talking.

And while the Wildcats (24-10) were out of their element, the Sooners were right at home.

“There were a lot of rough words, curse words,” a smiling Selvy said afterward. “It was just a little competition. But they came at us. If they can’t handle the big dog, stay on the porch.”

Walton and junior point guard Jason Gardner couldn’t handle a swarming Oklahoma defense. Arizona’s two high scorers, who entered the game averaging a combined 40 points in the postseason, combined for 23.

Walton, hounded by Selvy, finished with nine points on three-of-nine shooting, including a pair of airballs.

“I told him he wasn’t getting nothing on me,” Selvy said of his blowing kisses at Walton. “I was waiting to hold him the whole game and Coach finally put me on him at the 13-minute mark and I just enjoyed it.”

As did the rest of the Sooners.

Hollis Price, Oklahoma’s 6-foot-1, 165-pound wisp of a sharpshooter, led Oklahoma with 26 points, 22 in the first half while knocking down six three-pointers.

Sooner power forward Aaron McGhee awoke from his slumber to finish with 21 points and eight rebounds, after getting two points and one rebound in the first half.

Arizona’s zone defense gave Oklahoma fits in the interior in the first half, in which the Sooners shot 36.4% from the field. Arizona, meanwhile, had shot 56.5%

But with Selvy, who had 15 points in 28 minutes off the bench, leading the Sooner charge, Oklahoma made 51.4% of its shots in the second half, when the Sooners outscored the Wildcats, 55-30.

And after being outrebounded by three in the first 20 minutes, the Sooners finished with a five-rebound advantage, 42-37.

“When we make shots, we’re capable of blowing people out,” said Oklahoma Coach Kelvin Sampson, whose father, John, was recovering from surgery Wednesday in San Jose for a subdural hematoma.

“Today, we shot 51% in the second half. We shoot 51%, we’re hard to beat.”

With the win, Oklahoma won 30 games in a season for the fourth time in school history, the first time since 1989. The Sooners have also won 11 in a row and 15 of 16.

“Oklahoma was just a whole lot quicker and more explosive on the ball,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. “We felt that the difference in the game would be possessions. They outboarded us in offensive rebounds [16-12] and we had more turnovers [12-5].

“We got out-quicked and out-fought in the second half.”

Said Selvy: “We started out real tentative. The refs were talking to us a lot, but the second half, we didn’t worry about them. We were just out there playing tough ball.”

And blowing kisses.