The Texas Longhorns extended their winning streak at Lloyd Noble Center to seven games with Saturday’s 79-69 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry after overcoming a 14-point deficit in the first half by shooting 75 percent after halftime.
Oklahoma
Texas overcomes early deficit for 79-69 win at Oklahoma
Junior wing Dailyn Swain scored 11 of his team-high 20 points over the final 10 minutes as the Longhorns closed the game on a 9-2 run and four other Texas players reached double figures, led by junior forward Cam Heide, who hit three big threes and finished 5-of-6 shooting.
Head coach Sean Miller also received a boost off the bench from junior guard Simeon Wilcher, whose 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting marked his first double-digit scoring performance since scoring 10 points in the blowout loss to Tennessee. The St. John’s transfer had only scored nine combined points in the six games since that defeat, including back-to-back scoreless outings.
With eight points from senior guard Chendall Weaver, Texas had a rare advantage in bench points in addition to a 42-28 edge in points in the paint.
The foul virus didn’t plague Texas to start the game, but other defensive issues did as Miller was forced to call a timeout before the stoppage for the under-16 timeout because the Longhorns had already fallen behind 13-4 thanks to 1-of-5 shooting and two turnovers and allowing the Sooners to get off to a hot start by hitting 5-of-7 shots, including three triples, and going on an 8-0 run over 1:34.
Texas wasn’t able to bounce back immediately, falling behind 23-9 because of a 1-of-9 shooting stretch, but Oklahoma did finally start to cool off before the under-eight timeout, missing four straight shots as the Horns found some footing offensively with the help of Weaver off the bench. Weaver hit two push shots in the lane and then made his eighth three of the season. Combined with a layup by sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis off a short roll, Texas was suddenly in the midst of a 4-of-5 shooting stretch to cut the deficit to seven points.
Despite six straight made shots by the Horns heading into the final media timeout of the half, the momentum had stalled because of two straight turnovers and an open three given up to Nijel Pack when Swain went for a steal he didn’t come up with after Texas failed to come up with a loose ball on a missed shot.
Out of the timeout, however, the Longhorns quickly cut the deficit to a single point when Wilcher scored in the lane on a drive and Heide got a slam from the dunker’s spot and then hit a three in transition. An airballed three by graduate guard Tramon Mark with a little more than a minute remaining in the half ended the streak of nine straight made baskets by Texas.
A late three by Oklahoma gave the Sooners a 33-30 lead at halftime, the fifth made three of the half for the home team as the Horns went 2-of-10 shooting from beyond the arc over the opening 20 minutes.
Both teams traded threes to open the second half, including another three by Heide on a good skip pass out of a double team by Vokietaitis, who hit a layup on the next Texas possession by sealing the fronting defender. In a rare instance of Heide using his shot credibility to produce a drive, the Purdue transfer hung in the air for a nice finish at the rim.
The game settled into a close affair by the under-16 timeout, although the Longhorns hadn’t been able to push through for their first lead of the game despite 4-of-5 shooting to open the half. It finally happened when Swain converted a trip to the free-throw line, but the Sooners quickly responded with a corner three to regain the edge.
A critical stretch came close to midway through the first half when Weaver was called for a questionable flagrant foul when he jumped early trying to block a shot and landed on the Oklahoma player. The Sooners were’t able to capitalize at the line, but hit a jumper on the extra possession afforded by the call, then made two more to take a six-point lead when Miller called a timeout with 10:12 remaining hoping to keep the game from getting out of reach.
Another important call happened after the timeout when Swain banked in a shot and got a questionable block call in a three-point swing. Shortly thereafter, a bounce went in favor of Oklahoma when a loose ball was swatted away from the basket and into the hands of Xzayvier Brown, who drained the three to extend the lead back to six points at the under-six timeout.
The game remained back-and-forth out of the timeout when a skip pass from Swain found Heide for an open three and Wilcher drove for a bank shot from the left side, cutting the deficit to one point and forcing a timeout by Porter Moser, suddenly worried about his team’s momentum and propensity for making losing plays.
When play resumed, Heide had to go to the bench with his first foul for dumping an Oklahoma playing trying to box out, but Texas gained a rare lead when Swain capped a 7-0 run with a driving dunk, a surge ended when a steal turned into a put back by the Sooners. Wilcher put the Horns back into the lead by rattling home a corner three with 5:34 remaining on another assist by Swain, whose surge continued with a subsequent hesitation move and left-handed finish. When a good screen by graduate forward Lassina Traore freed senior guard Jordan Pope for an open three, the five-point lead was the largest of the game for the Horns, prompting another timeout by Moser.
In the type of play that Texas tends to make, Dalton Forsythe fouled Pope on a made three, although the Oregon State transfer couldn’t complete the four-point play at the line. On the other end, good on-ball defense by Wilcher forced back-to-back airballed threes by Pack. Working in the paint, Swain absorbed contact to hit a short jumper to extend the lead to seven points with 1:32 remaining.
Oklahoma responded with two made free throws and when the Sooners sent Wilcher to the line, Traore was called for a lane violation on the first three throw, a make by the 95-percent shooter. The Sooners missed two more threes in the midst of a three-minute scoring drought with Swain finally converting at the line to make it an eight-point game.
By that point, the outcome was sealed as the Longhorns picked up a critical Quad 1 victory and the team’s first road win in three weeks.
Texas returns to the Moody Center on Tuesday to face South Carolina in the most winnable game left on the regular-season schedule.
Brent Venables got Oklahoma back to the College Football Playoff in 2025, and while the season was a massive success, merely making the 12-team field isn’t good enough for anyone in Norman — Venables included.
The Sooners enter 2026 with something that has been missing on both sides of the ball for a few years: continuity.
OU returns its starting quarterback, John Mateer, for the first time since Dillon Gabriel started Venables’ first two seasons as head coach.
Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is back, and while Venables lost cornerbacks coach Jay Valai to the Buffalo Bills, Venables has everyone else back on his staff and he’s the architect of the defense.
The schedule will be tough again, but expectations are high for Venables’ fifth team at Oklahoma.
Here are three areas the Sooners need to improve to get back in the national championship picture.
Run the Ball
Venables hasn’t shied away from OU’s issues running the football.
He’s put improvement in the rushing attack at the forefront all throughout the offseason, from working to sharpen the mentality of the offense to bringing in pieces like right tackle E’Marion Harris and a virtually new tight end room to help the cause.
More consistency on the ground will take pressure off Mateer’s shoulders.
It will not only allow OU to control the clock and give its defense a rest, but it will also open up the passing game downfield if the second and third levels of opposing defenses truly have to worry about bottling up the run and the pass.
The inability to run the ball was the Sooners’ most glaring issue in 2025, so there is plenty of room for improvement this fall.
Limit Mateer’s Turnovers
At times, Mateer had to do everything for OU’s offense in 2025.
There were memorable moments, but Mateer also had a handful of head-scratching mistakes.
He threw a career-high 11 interceptions a year ago, and his downturn in turnovers in November coincided with the Sooners’ employing conservative game plans.
His worst moment came in the loss to Texas, where he threw three picks, but that performance came 17 days after thumb surgery, where he clearly was unable to throw the ball downfield with real accuracy.
But he threw a pick in each of his first three games on questionable decisions, then he threw a nearly catastrophic pick against Tennessee when the Sooners were just trying to milk the clock late.
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He tossed another three picks against LSU, and the pick six he threw against Alabama helped the Crimson Tide roar all the way back after digging a 17-point hole in the College Football Playoff.
Mateer’s freewheeling nature produced incredible moments, and that will lead to risky throws. The tradeoff in those moments is usually worth it, but he can cut down on his misfires elsewhere to find a balance between pushing the envelope and taking care of the football.
Avoid the Back-breaking Special Teams Plays
Oklahoma was excellent on special teams in 2025 for the most part.
Kicker Tate Sandell won the program’s first Lou Groza Award for his incredible season, and special teams played a big role in massive victories, like Isaiah Sategna’s first punt return in Tuscaloosa that set OU’s offense up deep in Alabama territory.
But the few special teams lapses were monumental.
Texas effectively put away the Red River Showdown by returning a punt for a touchdown, though Venables correctly pointed out a key block in the back that wasn’t called that helped spring the touchdown.
But in the Cotton Bowl, the call stood, and it’s the kind of play that cannot happen when lining up against the best competition on the schedule.
Then, in the CFP, punter Grayson Miller oddly dropped the football, leading to a blocked punt. Alabama was able to take that play and start clawing its way back into the contest.
Doug Deakin has done a phenomenal job with the Sooners’ special teams units, but there are still improvements to be made in 2026.
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Wembanyama leads San Antonio Spurs past Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 to reach NBA Finals
Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs started the Western Conference finals with a win in Oklahoma City, then ended the series the same way.
The champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.
Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie got 18 of his 20 off of 3-pointers, and the Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Saturday night – bucking heavy odds to win a Game 7 on the road.
“This feeling, I can’t explain it,” Wembanyama said. “It’s so powerful.”
Stephon Castle scored 16 points, and De’Aaron Fox had 15. Dylan Harper added 12, and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11 for the Spurs, who are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
They will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
“Back in October, we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
Correction – the Spurs have a chance to be great. Championship-level great.
A huge moment came midway through the fourth, when San Antonio’s Luke Kornet blocked Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim – denying a fast-break score that would have gotten the Thunder within four.
It felt like the last gasp for the Thunder. Kornet played six minutes, missed all three of his shot attempts, and finished with only two points, but the block was an epic moment.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 35 points and nine assists, but for the eighth consecutive season, the NBA will have a new champion. Cason Wallace scored 17 points, while Jared McCain and Alex Caruso had 12 apiece for the Thunder.
“You have to grow from every experience, including the tough ones,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “And it’s the NBA – there are tough ones. We can also be really disappointed. … There’s nobody that we don’t think we can beat, respectfully.”
After four straight games that were largely decided going into the fourth quarter — the Thunder led Game 3 by 11, the Spurs led Game 4 by 18, the Thunder led Game 5 by 10, and the Spurs led Game 6 by 26, those leads all holding up with relative ease – this one was different, worthy of a Game 7.
Spurs 80, Thunder 77 was the score going into the fourth, a bit of a back-and-forth contest in which the Spurs led by as many as 14 in the first half and by as many as 11 in the third, only to see the Thunder come roaring back both times.
“The players did what they’ve been doing all year, and they met the biggest moment,” Johnson said.
The Spurs pulled away in the fourth again, daring the Thunder to try to come back one more time. The champions — short-handed, with Jalen Williams sidelined with a bad hamstring — just didn’t have anything left.
“Winning an NBA championship is very hard in itself to do one time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So to do it all over again would just only make it harder.”
San Antonio won eight of the 12 meetings against the Thunder this season — and in the end, the only matchup that really mattered.
“We want four more,” Wembanyama said. “We’re not done.”
SAN ANTONIO – Eight very lucky Spurs superfans are on their way to Oklahoma City, all thanks to H-E-B!
Early Saturday morning, the Spurs Jackals, a team of superfans of the San Antonio Spurs, personally curated by Victor Wembanyama ahead of the 2025-2026 season, announced via X (formerly Twitter) that eight of their members would be going to Oklahoma City.
This came following a previous announcement from the previous day, sadly telling fans they would not be in attendance at Game 7.
Following that, H-E-B confirmed the announcement, saying that the eight lucky superfans would be joining the organization for Game 7 in Oklahoma City.
RELATED | Meet the Jackals: San Antonio’s new era of Spurs energy
Whether you’ve been to a San Antonio Spurs game in person or caught them taking over your social media feed, you’ve heard them before.
During home games, the fans inside The Frost Bank Center serve as a heartbeat, and The Jackals are the pulse.
Founded ahead of the 2025-2026 season by Victor Wembanyama, the group got the ultimate co-sign from Wemby himself when he gave them their now-iconic name, The Jackals.
No matter if you’re up in the 200 section or courtside cheering for the Spurs. The jackals are in section 114 and in the H-E-B fan zone, carrying the energy across all levels of Frost Bank Arena.
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