No. 1 seed Gonzaga remained undefeated and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen with an 87-71 win over the Oklahoma Sooners Monday afternoon in Indianapolis.

OU started out well but faded late in the first half.

 “…we started out shooting the ball well and getting good looks and making shots, and it’s kind of back and forth there through the first 10, 12 minutes, then they got away from us a little bit,” said OU coach Lon Kruger. “Any time that happens, you look back, and we turned it over nine times I think in the first half. You just can’t afford to do that. I think their pressure hurt us a little bit in terms of tempo and rhythm, three-quarter court. But yeah, just got to take a little better care of the ball than we did.”

OU’s Austin Reaves scored 27 points for Oklahoma (16-11), and after trailing by 19 with 12 minutes left, the Sooners pulled within 77-68 on his 3-pointer with 2:37 left.

“He was fantastic, yeah,” said Kruger. “He just competes like crazy and keeps going downhill and keeps working at it. Again, I thought he got his third foul early in the second half, thought he did a good job of playing through that, two fouls early in the first half or midway in the first half hurt him a little bit, but he got back in there and played well with the two fouls. But yeah, he had that type of year. Just terrific production and competed like crazy.”

Gonzaga’s Drew Timme got a career-high 30 points and 13 rebounds. Timmewas 9 of 12 shooting and 12 of 14 at the free-throw line. 

“Yeah, their big guys keep pressure on you on the offensive end, and then when you go to the other end, Brady (Manek)  has had a terrific career, obviously didn’t make the shots today that he would like to, and Kur (Kuath) I thought did a great job protecting the rim, not much on the offensive end in general,” Kruger said. “But yeah, those guys, they’re two seniors that worked hard and appreciate their efforts, and again, wish they could have gone out on a little better note individually as well as the group, but what a great career Brady had, and Kur has just gotten better and better, and we’ll keep doing that.”

Because of a special exemption by the NCAA, athletes can take an extra year of eligibility due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

“No, I haven’t at all talked with any of them about that, no,” Kruger said. “We’ll do that here in the next few days, week, and especially the seniors, we’ll have a meeting with everyone, of course, but especially the seniors with the COVID rules and all that. We’ll have those conversations.”

No. 8 seed OU opened the tournament Saturday with a 72-68 win over No. 9 seed Missouri – a former conference member in the Big 12 and the Big Eight.

Reaves had 23 points against Missouri and Manek added 19 points.

The Sooners were without guard De’Vion Harmon, who tested positive for the coronavirus upon arrival in Indianapolis. The sophomore was the team’s second-leading scorer (12.3 points per game) and missed round two as well.