Nijel Pack had 20 points and four 3-pointers before leaving with an injury and the Oklahoma Sooners continued a late push for an NCAA Tournament bid with an 83-63 blowout victory over Texas A&M in the Southeastern Conference tournament Thursday in Nashville, Tenn.
Xzayvier Brown had 16 points and six rebounds, Derrion Reid had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Tae Davis had 14 points for the 11th-seeded Sooners, who led by 22 points at halftime to take their sixth straight win.
Oklahoma (19-14) was projected to be one of the last bubble teams left out of the NCAA field of 68 before conference tournaments began.
The Sooners will face No. 17 and third-seeded Arkansas (23-8) in the quarterfinals Friday. The Razorbacks won the regular-season meeting 83-79 on Jan. 27, when Pack scored 22.
Rashaun Agee had 13 points and 10 rebounds, Rylan Griffen scored 13 points and Pop Isaacs had 12 points on four 3-pointers for the sixth-seeded Aggies (21-11), who shot 38.3 percent.
Pack took a head-to-head shot from Aggies guard Marcus Hill while defending a Hill drive with 5:46 remaining and left the game, holding a towel to his face on the bench. Pack did not return.
Hill was called for a Flagrant 1 foul, and Brown made two free throws for a 77-56 lead.
Mohamed Wague had seven points and eight rebounds for the Sooners, who had a 48-33 rebounding edge.
Oklahoma has won eight of 10 since breaking a nine-game losing streak with a victory over No. 22 Vanderbilt on Feb. 7.
The Sooners, who overcame a 13-point deficit in the first-round in an 86-74 win over South Carolina, never trailed.
Pack’s third 3-pointer of the first half keyed a 21-3 run to give them a 38-14 lead with 5:26 left in the first half.
Davis scored eight points in that stretch and Brown and Jadon Jones had 3-pointers while the Aggies missed 15 of 16 field-goal attempts. Brown’s jumper gave Oklahoma a 49-27 halftime lead.
Isaacs made two 3-pointers and the Aggies made their six shots in the second half to cut the deficit to 54-42 but were never closer as the Sooners pushed it back to 20 shortly and never were challenged.
–Field Level Media
