By KRISTIE RIEKEN
AP Sports Writer
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) -- Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon chose to shy away from talk of X's and O's and deliver a simple message to his team at halftime after a poor first half against Oklahoma on Wednesday night.
He implored his team to play hard, play together and have fun -- and Texas A&M responded with a much better second half.
Khris Middleton scored 13 points to lead the No. 21 Aggies to their fifth straight win, 61-47 over the slumping Sooners.
"I think you saw a lot more smiles on our faces in the second half," Turgeon said. "We were really good in the second half. We rebounded, we defended and we executed."
The Aggies were up by four points before a 13-2 run stretched their lead to 51-36 with 6 minutes remaining. Texas A&M got points from six different players in that span on a night with a balanced overall scoring effort.
"I thought during that stretch we were wearing them down," Turgeon said. "Our bench was doing some good things. We just talked about continuing to build it up."
Texas A&M (22-5, 9-4 Big 12) took advantage of a strong start to the second half to take a 10-point lead, but allowed Oklahoma to get back in it before the decisive run.
Texas A&M senior B.J. Holmes said they took Turgeon's halftime speech to heart.
"We came out with more energy," he said. "That's one of the biggest things coach was talking about at half. We looked flat in the first half. In the second half, we were able to get the fast break and get some better shots."
Cade Davis had 21 points for Oklahoma (12-15, 4-9), which dropped its sixth in a row.
"Our inability to make a shot in the second half did us in," Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel said. "We just couldn't finish plays, and I thought it allowed them to get out in transition and it deflated us."
It was the Aggies' fourth straight win over Oklahoma after they beat the Sooners 69-51 in the first meeting this season.
Nathan Walkup chipped in 11 points and had nine rebounds for A&M, and Dash Harris and Kourtney Roberson added eight points apiece. Roberson led a strong effort from A&M's reserves, who outscored Oklahoma's 18-3.
Texas A&M limited Oklahoma to just over 33-percent shooting, improving the Aggies to 20-1 this season when holding an opponent to less than 45 percent. The Sooners shot just under 29 percent in the second half after making 40 percent of their shots in the first half.
Oklahoma's 47 points were the second-fewest the team has managed this season and just one point off its season low in a 66-46 loss to No. 5 Texas.
The Aggies scored the first 11 points of the second half to erase a one-point deficit and take a 36-26 lead with about 15 minutes remaining. B.J. Holmes and Walkup each hit a 3-pointer in that span as the Sooners went cold. Oklahoma missed its first nine shots and four free throws of the second half and didn't score until Cameron Clark's jumper with just under 15 minutes left.
"We just couldn't make shots," Davis said of that drought. "We were getting open looks, we just couldn't knock them down. That got our heads down a little bit, got us a little frustrated and then we let it domino into playing bad defense."
They got going after that, using an 8-2 run that started with Clark's shot to cut A&M's lead to 38-34 about 3 minutes later.
Oklahoma got off to a strong start and was up 18-13 with about 10 minutes left until halftime. Texas A&M got on track after that and used an 8-0 spurt to take a 21-18 lead 7 minutes later.
The Sooners led 26-25 at halftime.
Updated February 23, 2011
