After Vivian Gray spent most of last year being the sole offensive output, help is here for the new season.

A major, unexpected shift happened to the Oklahoma State receiving corps Wednesday, but it didn’t hinder the group Saturday afternoon.

Needing a win to earn the conference championship, the Oklahoma State soccer team came out firing early and often Thursday night at Neal Patterson Stadium.

STILLWATER — Down midway through the fourth quarter, Spencer Sanders took a third-down snap, looking to make a play.

OU coach Lincoln Riley reminded his team of championships being won by having "defying moments in tough games and tough situations.''

Oklahoma and Tulsa announced a three-game series that will kick off at Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium in four years.

NORMAN — Sherri Coale looked at her players in hindsight and realized that, a year ago, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Everybody thought Kaylee Dao just missed, that Oklahoma’s best player, who’d scored more than half her team’s goals this season, had poked one just wide.

Did the loss knock OU out of the CFP? It very well may have. Unfortunately, one loss by a non-SEC teams leaves their fate in the hands of the bureaucratic CFP committee and that should make OU fans understandably uneasy.

MANHATTAN, Kansas — Students slipped over the chalky walls and onto the playing surface at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, many of them not old enough to have been born the last time their Wildcats did this.

NORMAN — As Jalen Hurts looked for an open Oklahoma receiver in the end zone, West Virginia defensive end Reuben Jones inched closer in pursuit.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Eventually, the Thunder are going to win one of these. Despite a sparkling finish, it wasn’t Sunday.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two things are true about how Oklahoma City managed to win only one of its first five games.

OKLAHOMA CITY — In a game they scored 115 points, the Thunder scored just 21 in the fourth quarter, repeating some of the failures that had led to four late losses five games into the season.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Though winnable games against Washington and at Houston have gotten away from the Thunder, they’re well ahead of the game by at least one defensive measure.

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OKLAHOMA CITY — The horrid 32.6 percent shooting Golden State offered may not be replicable, yet the defense that helped produce it may be.

The Thunder played four preseason games, winning the first two and losing the next two.

• Roberson's readiness: Andre Roberson hasn’t played in a game since rupturing his left patellar tendon at Detroit two Januaries ago. 

OKLAHOMA CITY — If the 46 points the Thunder allowed in the third quarter can be glossed over as something other than the primary takeaway from Oklahoma City’s final preseason game, a 124-119 loss to Memphis Wednesday night inside Chesapeake Energy Arena, then Devon Hall can be.

TULSA — Through Thunder training camp, much discussed topics have included Chris Paul, the squad’s lone superstar, ball movement as a big part of the offense, how coach Billy Donovan might manage three different point guards and the back-on-the-court-again Andre Roberson.