Despite the recent losing skid, there hadn’t been a point where it felt like the frustration had been setting in for Oklahoma basketball.

But it finally did in the second half of OU’s 65-51 loss to visiting Baylor on Saturday afternoon at Lloyd Noble Center, the fourth loss in a row for Porter Moser’s club.

OU had worked a 44-30 deficit down to 47-42 with just over six minutes left when Tanner Groves was involved in a collision with Baylor’s Matthew Mayer.

No foul was called, Baylor took possession and Elijah Harkless committed a foul. Then Groves was assessed a technical. Baylor made all four free throws to make it 51-42 and never looked back.

The officials reviewed the play, deemed the contact by Mayer to Groves wasn’t a flagrant foul, but the damage had been done.

“Unacceptable. Unacceptable,” Moser said. “I talked to the team. I talked to Tanner about it. Let me get it. Officials have a little bit longer rope with a coach than a player. He knows it. He just apologized to the team and us. You can't do that. You can't scream at the official no matter what it is.

“Those were key moments when you are coming back. It turned out to be a four-point possession. We'll learn from it. We'll grow from it. Nobody cares more than Tanner but he made a mistake. It was an evident teaching moment.”

That’s just the way it has been for OU in the last two weeks. From sitting at 12-3 and 2-1 in conference play, things have crashed to 12-7 overall and 2-5 in conference action.

The technical highlighted the afternoon, but the story, again, was turnovers. The Sooners committed 25 turnovers against Baylor that led to 35 points for the Bears.

It started off poorly, with seven in the first four minutes. But it never really slowed down. OU had 14 at halftime and 11 more in the second half.

“You are not going to beat Baylor with 25 turnovers,” Moser said. “You aren't going to beat a lot of teams with 25 turnovers. We are searching for consistency. That's guys who play well ... you need a lot of guys playing well together. And we're searching for consistency.

“I know we're short-handed. Still, your key guys, we have to step up. I thought we played really hard at times. I thought we fought back. We were down 10-0 and fought back to take a lead. We got down 14 or something in the second half and fought back to cut it to 3. There's a lot of fight in this team. There's a lot of fight that I like to see, but we've got to play with better poise with the ball in terms of turnovers.”

OU was without Ethan Chargois for the third straight game because of an ankle injury, while C.J. Noland missed the game being in concussion protocol.

OU was down 10-0 to begin the game, took a 21-17 lead before Baylor ended the half on an 8-0 run that turned into 16 in a row with the first eight in the second half.

OU has had some good starts, but in this two-game stretch vs. Kansas and Baylor, it was awful starts that put them behind early and had it playing catch-up the rest of the way.

The Sooners received a lift from AK Mawein (six points, four rebounds) and Marvin Johnson (five points, two rebounds), who answered the bell when their names were called. And that’s a positive on an afternoon that wasn’t full of many.

Up next is a two-game road trip, including a stop at No. 2 Auburn next Saturday. But first is a visit to West Virginia. The Mountaineers have lost three games in a row.

“It literally starts at the top with me,” Moser said. “For me to come in every day fighting, clawing, being prepared, being prepared for practice, being prepared to beat West Virginia. So it starts with me, the coaches and then the leadership group, the first five, they've got to come in. There's definitely fight in this group.

“So I think we did some really good things, but it starts with me. There's going to be no quit in this team, we'll fight. We're searching. We'll find it. We'll get better.”