Jalon Moore scored a career-high 18 points to lead Oklahoma to a 79-67 win over Iowa on Thursday in the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego.
The Sooners will take on the winner of Thursday’s later game between Southern California and Seton Hall in Friday’s title game, while Iowa will take on the USC-Seton Hall loser.
The Sooners are 5-0 for the first time since the 2019-20 season.
Iowa (3-2) has dropped two of its last three.
In the opening minutes of the second half, Moore took a feed from Milos Uzan, attacking the basket off a turnover and battled through a foul by Iowa’s Payton Sandfort for a dunk to start a three-point play.
Uzan had nine of Oklahoma’s 15 assists.
Javian McCollum added 14 points for Oklahoma while Otega Oweh scored 13 and Sam Godwin had 11.
The Hawkeyes came into the game averaging 95 points per game, one of the top marks in the country, and hadn’t scored fewer than 84 points in any of their first four games.
But Iowa’s offense ground to a halt for large stretches against the Sooners, who entered in the top 10 nationally in fewest points allowed per game.
The Hawkeyes started just 1 for 7 from the floor to quickly put themselves in a hole.
The Sooners, on the other hand, made 6 of their first 10 from the field to take the lead.
Iowa never led and trailed for all but 32 seconds.
The Hawkeyes were coming off a win over Arkansas State where they were just 2 of 12 from beyond the arc.
Those struggles from distance continued Thursday, as Iowa missed its first 14 3-pointers, not making one until less than 13 minutes remained in the game.
Iowa was just 4 of 23 (17.4 percent) on 3-pointers and made their last three to avoid an even worse shooting performance from distance.
Opponents are shooting just 21.6 percent from beyond the arc against the Sooners this season.
Owen Freeman led Iowa with 13 points while Sandfort added 12 and Ben Krikke had 11.
–Field Level Media
