If you like offense, the final four minutes of the Oklahoma-Alabama top-25 showdown won’t be something you ever watch again.

Both teams locking down defensively, stop after stop until OU’s Elijah Harkless stepped up and made the biggest bucket of the game with just over 19 seconds left.

That one basket proved to be enough because of a sensational defensive performance by the Sooners in taking down the No 9th-ranked Crimson Tide 66-61 on Saturday afternoon at Lloyd Noble Center in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Where to start? The win gives OU its third consecutive top-10 victory with wins over No. 9 Kansas, at No. 5 Texas and now No. 9 Bama.

Going further, the Sooners become the first team since 1974 to defeat four top-10 opponents in one calendar month. OU also took out No. 9 West Virginia four weeks ago.

And in this brutal stretch of facing top-15 teams in seven of games, the Sooners are now 3-0 and are now 11-4 overall and obviously still 6-3 in Big 12 play.

This one? Lon Kruger’s group did it without starters Austin Reaves and Alondes Williams, who missed the game because of COVID-19 protocols. Kruger said the team learned Friday morning the two guards would miss Saturday.

With OU hanging on with a 63-61 lead with 1:54 left, teams exchanged defensive stops before Harkless stepped up in the moment and hit a fallaway jumper near the free throw line.

“It was great. It wasn’t picture – by the book, necessarily,” Kruger said. “He had to kinda pivot a couple of times. The toughness to hang in there and get it off. It was huge, huge play by E.J. and credit to him. Then we got a stop on the other end, and that was important as well.”

Locking down defensively has been the hallmark of this year’s group and never was it more prevalent or needed than vs. the Tide. OU had a 55-43 lead erased by Bama’s 17-4 run to lead 59-58.

All the Sooners did the rest of the way was limit Bama to 1-of-10 shooting in the final five minutes and not let it make a field goal in the last 4:21.

“Guys did a good job of getting into their shooters,” Kruger said. “They all shoot it great, move the ball great. The key was the guys did a pretty good job of guarding the ball. We didn’t have to help and recover… Not that you can win that battle every time down, but we won just enough of them.”

De’Vion Harmon led the way with 18 points and added four rebounds, four assists and two steals. Harkless finished with 14 points, five rebounds and three steals.

It’s usually Reaves who takes that crunch-time moment shot for the Sooners. It had to be someone else vs. Bama, and Harkless was ready.

“I ended up losing the ball. It wasn’t as pretty as I would have liked,” Harkless said. “But we got the result we wanted. The coaching staff believed in me. My teammates believed in me. So that was great.”

Notes

*Brady Manek won’t say he’s back, for sure, but his second half was a long time coming. Still trying to get back into the flow after missing for COVID-19 earlier this month, Manek played his best stretch of ball since returning.

He scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half.

“I just wanted to play really hard today,” Manek said. “I knew that I've been in a slump and hadn't been making shots. It's been kind of keeping me out. I knew if I played hard and did what I could, everything else would hopefully fall into place and I think that's what happened. I came out and had a few rebounds in the first half.

“In the second half, I got that and-one and hit the 3. It helped keep me in the game. I got the offensive rebounds, the defensive rebounds, got a couple there late. I'm just trying to focus on playing hard.”

*OU’s road does not get any easier as the Sooners travel to Texas Tech on Monday evening. Tech won at OU 69-67 last month.