Oklahoma Regroups to Earn Overtime Win vs. Colorado in College Basketball Crown

It wasn’t always pretty, but the Sooners found a way to win their first game in nearly a month.

Oklahoma defeated former Big 12 rival Colorado 90-86 in overtime in the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Crown in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The win marks coach Porter Moser’s second postseason win (not counting conference tournaments) during his five-year tenure at Oklahoma.

The win is OU’s 20th of the 2025-26 season after they went 19-15 overall before the Crown. Colorado finished the season 17-16 after Wednesday’s loss.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Sooners blow late lead, game goes to OT

OU had all of the momentum in the second half — until the final two minutes.

The Sooners shot 37 percent from the field in the first half and went to the locker room down four, and Colorado extended its lead to eight early in the second half. But after that, they began to chip away at the deficit before eventually taking the lead. 

OU held the Buffaloes to 12 missed field goals in a row and held a seven-point lead with 1:41 to go. But that advantage wasn’t large enough for the Sooners to win in regulation.

After Kuol Atak hit a 3-pointer to put Oklahoma up 74-67, the Sooners didn’t score again until the final buzzer of regulation sounded. Colorado’s Barrington Hargress hit a three right after Atak’s, Alon Michaeli made two free throws and Hargress made a game-tying layup to give the fans at MGM Grand Garden Arena five free minutes of basketball.

OU prevails in overtime

Despite their late collapse, the Sooners got it done after regulation.

Oklahoma outscored Colorado 16-12 in the overtime period. Nijel Pack paced the Sooners with six points on two 3-pointers, while Tae Davis added four points.

Xzayvier Brown made a pair of free throws to give OU an 86-85 lead with 32 seconds left. Oklahoma stopped Colorado on its ensuing possession before Atak made two free throws to make it a three-point game.

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Davis fouled the Buffaloes on the inbounds pass with three seconds left, but Hargress made only one of his attempts. Colorado fouled Brown, and the guard made both of his attempts to ice the game.

Pack scored a team-high 20 points on 7-of-18 shooting. Four Sooners — Pack, Davis, Brown and Atak — each scored more than 16 points.

Hargress logged a game-high 31 points, and 15 of those came from the free-throw line.

The season continues

Oklahoma is onto the Crown’s semifinals.

The Sooners will battle the winner of the quarterfinal game between Minnesota and Baylor — which tipped off 30 minutes after OU and Colorado’s battle ended — on Saturday, with tipoff scheduled for 12:30 p.m.

Minnesota, in its first year under coach Niko Medved, went 15-17 overall and 8-12 in Big Ten play. Baylor, which won the national championship in 2021, went 16-16 overall and 6-12 in the Big 12.

As a Round 1 winner, the Sooners won’t go back to Norman empty-handed. The four quarterfinal winners each take home $50,000.

The teams that win their semifinal games will be awarded at least $100,000, while the champion school takes home a $300,000 name-image-likeness cash prize.

The four teams on the other side of the bracket are West Virginia, Stanford, Rutgers and Creighton. Those four squads will play their quarterfinal matchups on Thursday.