Feb. 15—Oklahoma’s Beatrice Culliton had the ball in the short corner and needed to get rid of it.

A pair of Texas Tech defenders were closing in on the freshman center. Culliton lost the ball, but regained possession as she was falling out of bounds.

She jumped and turned, finding Aubrey Joens on the right wing, and the transfer from Iowa State knocked down her third 3-pointer of the first quarter.

It was the second game in a row that Joens had made three treys in a single game, but she wasn’t done there. And neither was Culliton.

The Sooners rode Joens’ hot shooting night to a 40-22 halftime lead before cruising to an 84-57 win.

It was the Sooners’ fifthstraight and moves them into a tie for first place in the Big 12 standings with Texas.

“It was really fun,” Joens said after scoring a seasonhigh 23 points. “I just think my team really involves me. The offense, we do a lot of cutting and we move the ball really well. The ball just found me today.”

Joens had an efficient night to lead the team in scoring, shooting 9-15 from the field and five-of-nine from deep with 11 rebounds. It was Joens’ first time leading the team in scoring, smashing her previous season-high of 14 points against Robert Morris.

Joens entered the game on the heels of an 11-point performance against Kansas State, in which she was a perfect three-for-three from behind the arc.

It wasn’t a big night offensively for any of the team’s top three scorers, but the Sooners still managed to score over 80 points for the 18th time this season behind 48% shooting from the floor.

Of the Sooners’ 34 made buckets, 27 were assisted.

Texas Tech head coach Krista Gerlich had high praise for the Sooners’ ball movement.

“That’s some really good basketball and that’s a really good job of sharing it and people coming in and understanding their role,” she said. “I thought Aubrey Joens was incredible. I thought she came in and knew what her role was and played super hard. The more she made, the more energy she gave her team.”

Culliton came away with a big night in an unexpected way, finishing with a game-high 10 assists on the night.

The freshman from Kansas had never had more than four assists in her collegiate career. On Wednesday, Culliton repeatedly found success getting the ball at the high post and passing it to her cutting teammates.

Despite leading the country in assists per game, the Sooners have never had a player finish with more than eight assists in any game this season.

“How about that?” OU head coach Jennie Baranczyk said about Culliton’s performance. “It was her turn to be able to do that. She’s gonna look at it and be like: ‘Well, I need to get better here or there ...,’ but 10 assists is pretty amazing.

“I thought our movement was really great. They threw a lot of different looks at us, so for her to be able to find some people, it helps when Aubrey can shoot the way that she does ... but yeah that was fun.”

The Sooners hold a share of the top spot in the Big 12 standings with just four games remaining in the regular season. They’ll be back in action on Saturday in a road contest at Kansas before having a week off before hosting No. 17 Texas.