It didn’t matter that Chuck O’Bannon was 0-for-5 from behind the arc going into overtime.
With 28 seconds remaining in overtime, the forward pulled up confidently from three and drained it, giving TCU a 59-56 lead over Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon.
“All game I couldn’t get the three ball to fall, but it felt good all day,” O’Bannon said. “My next shot I always expect to go in and that’s exactly what happened at the end of the game.”
A layup by the Sooners on the other end and a missed free throw by the Frogs gave Oklahoma a chance at the buzzer, but TCU held strong defensively and forced a miss to seal the win.
For the second time in four days, the Frogs got a gutsy, well-rounded win to improve them to 2-1 in Big 12 play. It was their first win over Oklahoma since March 8, 2017.
With guard Mike Miles going 3-for-12 from the floor, O’Bannon and guard Micah Peavy stepped up to the plate for TCU, combining for 22 points.
“I would describe it as a hard-fought win. Like you said, it was super physical both teams,” Peavy said. “They let us get away with a lot of stuff, especially at the end. So, we just got it out and got this good win.”
Peavy added six rebounds, four assists and two steals for what was his best game to date in the purple and white.
Like they did on Wednesday against Kansas State, things got dicey for TCU near the end of regulation. On one end, guard Damion Baugh missed a free throw attempt to give Oklahoma the ball back with seven seconds remaining.
Baugh then redeemed himself by swatting away Oklahoma’s game-winning attempt with a second left. A miscommunication by the Frogs defensively, though, led to an easy layup by the Sooners to send the game into overtime.
After Oklahoma hit a triple to start the extra period, forward Eddie Lampkin took over.
The freshman first hit a layup to pull the Frogs within one. On the next possession, he hit a no-look, over-the-head pass to forward Emanuel Miller to put TCU up by one.
According to Lampkin and his teammates after the game, the big man dishes out flashy passes consistently in practice.
“I’m gonna be honest, I’ve been doing that. So I was ready to pull it out in a game,” Lampkin said.
The Sooners would then go on a 3-0 run to retake the lead, but another layup by Lampkin tied the game at 56 with 1:14 remaining before O’Bannon would win it.
All four of Lampkin’s points in the game came in overtime, adding three rebounds, three assists and two steals on the day.
The game had featured a TCU record for student attendance (2,144), as the TCU Frog Army had been loud and present from start to finish.
“Gosh, it was great to see them there and great to have a home-court advantage second to none,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “That was tremendous. Boy, it’d be great if we could do that every night.”
The large crowd did not help TCU early, though, as four-straight empty possessions to start the game put the Frogs in a hole right away and Oklahoma jumped out to a 9-0 lead.
Six early points from Texas Tech transfer Micah Peavy then spurred a 10-2 run by the Frogs, bringing them within one.
Midway through the first half, the Sooners led by as much as seven. The Frogs responded again, though, as forward Chuck O’Bannon capped a 7-2 run by TCU with four points of his own to make it 21-19 Oklahoma at the 7:38 mark.
From there, guard Francisco Farabello found his groove. The junior made two-straight threes to tie the game at 25 with under three minutes to go.
A late bucket by the Sooners put TCU down 29-27 at the half. Their 50% shooting from the floor as a team had offset eight first half turnovers.
Like the first half, Oklahoma came out of the gate strong yet again, extending its lead to seven in the first 2:11 of the second half.
This time, TCU got the offense going at the hands of an unlikely source. A 4-0 run by forward Xavier Cork (3.8 points per game) pulled the Frogs back within three.
It wasn’t until there were 14 minutes left in the game that Miles, the Big 12’s third-leading scorer, made his second shot of the day to give him four total points.
Midway through the second half, guard Damion Baugh hit O’Bannon with a pinpoint pass for a monstrous slam that sent Schollmaier Arena into a frenzy and cut Oklahoma’s lead to one.
By the 6:30 mark, it became clear that this game was turning into a slugfest. The two teams had a combined 32 turnovers and were shooting a collective 7-29 from behind the arc.
After going dormant for most of the second half, Peavy hit his first field goal in nearly 30 minutes of play to put TCU up 42-40 with 5:53 remaining.
Just over a minute later, forward Emanuel Miller, the Big 12’s leader in offensive rebounds (3.2 per game), had an offensive board and put-back layup that put TCU up four and forced an Oklahoma timeout that had the building shaking.
“[I] love it. Love them,” Miller said of the fans. “We feed off them.”
Peavy and Miller would then strike again, hitting back-to-back shots to extend TCU’s lead to six with under two minutes to go.
TCU was unable to close, though, giving up an 8-2 run at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime.
With Miles still unable to get anything going, Lampkin, O’Bannon and the rest of the Frogs stepped up to deliver TCU a 59-58 win in overtime.
Dixon said postgame that Oklahoma did a good job of limiting Miles as a threat.
“They came out to take the ball away from him [Miles] and trap him on ball screens,” Dixon said. “I don’t think any of us did a good job of adjusting to that.”
TCU had been unable to take care of the ball in the game, committing 19 turnovers. Defensively, the team was able to outweigh that by forcing Oklahoma into 20 turnovers of its own.
Next, the Frogs head to Stillwater to try and win their third-straight game. Tipoff against Oklahoma State is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m.
