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Updated: Saturday, February 15, 2003 8:46 PM EST
NCAA BASKETBALL RECAP
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(4) Oklahoma 63, Texas Tech 58
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LUBBOCK, Texas (Ticker) -- It was "Coach Bob Knight Day" in Lubbock, but Quannas White made it his own special day.

White scored a career-high 23 points to lead fourth-ranked Oklahoma to a 63-58 victory over Knight and Texas Tech in a Big 12 Conference battle.

Lubbock Mayor Marc McDougal proclaimed Saturday as "Coach Bob Knight Day" to commemorate Knight's 800th career win on February 5.

Students were given white T-shirts with "The clock doesn't stop at 800," a reference to the clock controversy in Oklahoma's 69-64 overtime win over the Red Raiders on January 20. In that game at Norman, the clock stopped twice in the last seven seconds, giving guard Hollis Price more time to dribble the length of the court for the game-tying jumper at the buzzer. Big 12 officials later admitted to the clock malfunction.

This time, Knight had his defense key on Price, Oklahoma's leading scorer, but White made him pay with 9-of-12 shooting from the field, including five 3-pointers. White had been averaging just 7.7 points per game this season.

Both Price and White are 6-1 senior guards who also played together in high school. Price, who entered the game with a 19.3 scoring average, managed 18 points on 7-of-20 shooting.

White is best known for distributing the ball and his defensive quickness on the perimeter, although he did much more than that on Saturday.

"Quannas can score, he had 20 at Texas last year and 17 against Kansas," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. "But he doesn't have to score since he distributes the ball. I think our record is something like 47-9 with him as our point guard. He does what he has to do to help this team win."

White also helped contain Texas Tech leading scorer Andre Emmett to 14 points, eight below his season average. Kasib Powell also had 14 for the Red Raiders.

"Sometimes with a guy like that, you just play 'hym' defense - hope you miss," Sampson said about Emmett.

Oklahoma (17-4, 8-2) bounced back from a loss to Texas and trails Kansas and Oklahoma State, who are both 8-1 in conference play.

The loss was the fifth in eight games but only the second at home for Texas Tech (14-7, 4-6).

White scored 15 points in the first half and hit two backbreaking 3-pointers in the second half. After Nathan Doudney hit a 3-pointer to pull Texas Tech within 49-47, White connected on a jumper from beyond the arc with 8:19 left.

Oklahoma increased its lead to 58-51 on a 3-pointer by freshman De'Angelo Alexander with 3:08 remaining, but the Red Raiders scored the next five points - a 3-pointer by Will Chavis and a pair of free throws by Powell with 2:04 left.

Jahbari Brown scored inside to give Oklahoma a 60-56 lead with 1:33 left and White sealed the win with his fifth 3-pointer of the game with 12 seconds remaining for a seven-point cushion. Texas Tech allowed the Sooners to consume most of the shot clock before White's clinching 3-pointer.

"We were going to foul and we just didn't," Knight said in a disgusted tone when asked why his players didn't foul sooner.

The Red Raiders shot 63 percent in the first half, converting 15-of-24 shots, but held just a 35-34 lead. They shot just 37 percent in the second half.

Oklahoma opened the second half with an 11-3 run as Price scored a layup and Alexander connected on a 3-pointer in the first 37 seconds.

"That bad start in the second half, those first 40 seconds, killed us," Knight said. "Overall, we played decently on the defensive end. But we had that lapse and in this game those kind of lapses on defense will cost you."

Ebi Ere, Oklahoma's second-leading scorer, was benched by Sampson after failing to reach double figures in five of his last eight games. Ere finished with seven points on 3-of-10 shooting after making only 3-of-16 shots in the win over Texas Tech last month.

"We benched Ebi to give De'Angelo more minutes and I think De'Angelo played admirably," Sampson said.

Alexander had nine points in 21 minutes.

A tip-in by Emmett with 13:48 remaining was the first basket of the second half for Texas Tech.

In the first half, the Red Raiders hit nine of their first 11 shots, but held just a 20-16 lead.


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