FAYETTEVILLE - Outside, hundreds of people were waving fingers, hoping, begging and maybe even praying to get inside sold-out Bud Walton Arena.

It had probably been a decade since the interest and demand had been so strong.

The capacity crowd brought its "A" game as Bud Walton rivaled the old Barnhell days.

Oklahoma came in with an undefeated record, four quality victories, a No. 4 ranking in the nation and arguably the best player in college basketball, Blake Griffin.

What it didn't have was an answer for the 5-11 Courtney Fortson, who weighed in at a buck eighty but played much bigger than anyone from Oklahoma expected.

ADVERTISEMENT

What he had was eight huge rebounds, 10 assists and enough defensive pressure to finally turn the Sooners into Laters. He drove and dished. He dived and dished. He flashed the passing lanes. If you measured his basketball IQ , he would be a genius. He's a fuel-injected V-8 engine that drives the Razorbacks bullet train. Fortson makes the impossible look easy and the improbable probable. He makes passes no one in the place sees but him and a teammate.

He has an SEC quarterback's touch going deep, and his bounce passes bring a gasp from the crowd.

He has only one speed - all out.

The Razorbacks roared to a 41-20 lead with 6:47 to play in the first half, but a technical foul on Tony Crocker sent the Sooners on an 11-0 run to cut it to 10. Any coach in America will tell you that after trailing by that much, cutting it to single digits by halftime is a great motivator.

Only it wasn't going to happen.

Not with Fortson on the floor, and he and Michael Washington, who had 17 points at intermission, played all but one minute of the opening half.

Feeding off Fortson's energy, the Hogs made 63.3 percent of their first-half shots, including 55.6 percent of their threepointers, and led 53-38, but there was no doubt the first and last thing John Pelphrey was going to talk about in the dressing room was a letdown.

They are inevitable, but they don't have to be devastating, as witnessed Tuesday night when the young Hogs played like veterans.

Besides, they had held Griffin, an All-American, to two field goals and six points in the first 20 minutes.

Griff in scored 15 in the second half, but much of the time Washington was on the bench with four fouls. As Griffin was warming up, Stefan Welsh hit a three and Marcus Monk, who gave the Hogs some very solid minutes, hit a floater. After Fortson hit a pair of free throws, it was 62-46.

But it wasn't coming as easy. Shots that fell early were bouncing out, but the Hogs collectively did a smart thing.

They went inside for highpercentage shots.

Michael Sanchez drove for two, and then Fortson sliced through the Sooners defense for two more.

The Sooners struggled early at the free-throw line but settled down when they had to, and this one wasn't decided until Fortson hit a pair of free throws with less than a minute to play.

Rotnei Clarke's third threepointer made it 72-47, but the Sooners answered with 3 threepointers and a pair of field goals off turnovers. With 8:48 to play and the score 72-60, Pelphrey grabbed a timeout.

Oklahoma's 16-0 run in just 2:31 hit a speed bump when Monk hit a pair of free throws and Sanchez got a huge rebound that Monk turned into two more freebies, but the race was on as the Sooners cut it to 83-79 with 4:25 to play.

Washington was back and scored seven consecutive points, and with an 89-81 lead and less than a minute to play, Fortson made a steal, was fouled and made the critical free throws.

It was a team victory, a huge one, and six Razorbacks finished with 10 or more points. But the driving force in the quality victory was the smallest Hog, who had a huge game.