Shooting doesn’t always travel in basketball. There are going to be some nights where no matter how well you execute, the ball simply won’t go in.

But when you have some crisp ball movement, definitely makes everybody’s life a little bit easier. It’s an exhibition so it’s OK to pump the brakes a bit, but you’re also allowed to be excited what Oklahoma was able to do in its 106-57 victory against Rogers State on Monday evening.

It’s hard to know if OU is ever gonna make 18 3-pointers in a game like Porter Moser’s group did in the exhibition, but a lot of them? Yea, they were makeable shots because of the passing, because of the patience.

The Sooners made 39 field goals and had 25 assists. Ethan Chargois led the way with five, while Jordan Goldwire had four. But it was about as good as you can ask for in November, making the extra pass and not forcing the action.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to do since we took over here. It’s been such a big part of what we did at our last stop,” Moser said. “Spacing and ball movement. Rick Majerus, I’ll reference Rick Majerus a lot in my time here at Oklahoma, he used to say in that Wisconsin accent that offense is spacing and spacing is offense.

“That’s been one of the biggest things is teaching him them how to play with space. If the play breaks down, continue to play random offense with space. I was really pleased with the guys’ assists. Passing, skipping, moving, staying in space, one mores. I thought the ball was popping.”

Shooting the lights out

Again, it’s hard to see OU ever hitting 18 of 27 in its 3-point attempts, but the Sooners rhythm allowed that to happen.

Especially when it came to Mo Gibson and Jacob Groves. The duo combined to shoot 14 of 15 from the field and didn’t miss a 3-pointer, going a perfect 10-for-10.

Groves, who had 20 points, was 6-of-6 from deep.

“He is who he is. He’s confident. It’s one of the things that drew us to him is his confident bounce,” Moser said. “He’s worked on his shot, and he has such a high release. He’s almost 6-foot-9 now and has such a high release. He’s such a big target on that wing when we’re skipping it to him. Loved his energy. He comes to practice every day with an energy and was really knocking his shot down.”

Gibson showed glimpses of this ability last season with the Sooners before things sort of bogged down for him down the stretch.

What isn’t surprising to anybody, though, is Gibson being ready for an exhibition game just as he would be ready for a Big 12 battle.

“Mo Gibson is a great example of working game speed. He shoots game speed,” Moser said. “Some guys go into the gym and it’s the John Wooden thing of don’t mistake activity for achievement. Go in and throw in 50 shots at half speed.

“When Mo shoots, he’s shooting at game speed all the time. So when he shoots that quick-release three, I know he’s practiced it. He has a really quick trigger… we need him to score and shoot the ball and stay spaced. And he did that.”

Coming together

That’s really what Monday was about – getting the guys together and learning some things on how to be a team. Never a finished product in November, obviously, but finally getting a chance to play another team never hurts.

“It was amazing,” senior guard Elijah Harkless said. “Coach (Porter Moser) challenges us every day in practice, so it kind of made it easy for us to gel. I think our chemistry is lightyears ahead of what it could have been.

“I think we all learned how to play with each other in such a short time, really, from the summer. They all got recruited late in the summer. It was pretty cool. I think we definitely learned each other's tendencies pretty quickly.”

Harkless had 13 points, while freshman C.J. Noland also added 13 points.

OU’s season opener is next Tuesday, hosting Northwestern State.