Jan. 12—It was just an off night for Oklahoma on Tuesday.

The Sooners struggled from the opening tip, and Texas took advantage. The Longhorns used a 12-0 run midway through the first half to take control of the game, and they went into halftime with a 12-point lead.

The Sooners never cut the lead to fewer than 10 points in the second half as the Longhorns kept them at bay, as OU fell 66-52 in Austin.

Here’s four observations from the Sooners’ loss:

1. Sooners struggle from the 3-point line Coming into Tuesday’s game, the Sooners had made 36 percent of their outside shots.

That wasn’t the case against Texas. The Sooners made just 1-of-13 attempts from the outside and missed all five of their attempts in the second half. The Longhorns didn’t do much better, making 4-of-14, but the Sooners’ struggles from the 3-point line helped the Longhorns maintain their lead.

It was an uncharacteristically poor shooting night for the team, and OU coach Porter Moser credited the Longhorns’ aggressive defense.

“I think Texas sped us up,” Moser said. “You can tell by the turnovers that we had. We got rushed. Our answer is sometimes when they were denying us entry [passes to the block], we put our heads down and we just over dribbled into a mess and we got sped up.

“Some [of our shooting looks] were nice. I thought Jacob Groves had a couple of nice ones. I thought Jordan [Goldwire] had a nice look at the end. I thought EJ had a nice one. Overall, I thought we were sped up.”’

2. Longhorns’ defense bottles up Tanner Groves

It was clear which OU player was the center of the Longhorns’ defensive game plan.

Groves ended the game with just one shot attempt, which he made, but was otherwise limited by the Longhorns’ defense. The Texas defense sent double teams at Groves nearly every time he caught the ball.

Groves, the Sooners’ leading scorer this season, also played just seven minutes in the first half and 16 total for the game, as two early fouls kept him on the bench for most of the game.

“Tanner’s been night-in and night-out for us,” Moser said. “It was a struggle across the board for our offense. I just want to make that clear. He’s truly been a guy night-in and night-out every day, literally. You have to give Texas credit. They took us out of a lot of things.”

3. Turnovers, free throws cost the Sooners

Turnovers have been a key focus for Moser this season, and that concern was on display.

The Sooners committed 17 turnovers

— 11 came off Texas steals — and several of them proved to be costly.

OU forward Jalen Hill didn’t mince words about his frustrations with the turnovers.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Hill said. “We just can’t have that many turnovers, plain and simple. We have to take better care of the ball, get good possessions, start the domino and just play with each other. That’s pretty much it.”

The Sooners shot plenty of free throws but didn’t take advantage, making just 13-of-22. Meanwhile, the Longhorns made 18-of-24, giving them a five-point advantage at the charity stripe.

4. Moser frustrated with Sooners’ lack of physicality

That was the main theme of Moser’s postgame press conference.

It was particularly frustrating for Moser because matched Baylor’s physicality last week and had no issues with it during the Sooners’ win over Iowa State last Saturday.

“[I’m] surprised because we’ve fought so many times against some teams. Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas State played so hard defensively,” Moser said. “So we’ve seen this. We just didn’t respond well today. We’ve got to really dig in. You’ve got to credit Texas. They’re very athletic, they’re long, they really get into you. You’ve got to give credit where credit is due, and you’ve got to give a lot of credit to their defense.

“We have to be better. And we will.”