NORMAN, OKLA. • Less than 48 hours after its exhilarating but exhausting victory over Kansas, No. 4 Mizzou on Monday averted a hangover loss to Oklahoma, holding on to win 71-68 when OU's Steven Pledger missed an open 3-pointer off the front and back of the rim at the buzzer.

"It was on-line. It felt good when it left my hand," Pledger said. "It didn't go in."

MU's Ricardo Ratliffe and Kim English helped scrape up the heartsick Pledger from the Lloyd Noble Arena floor after the miss enabled Mizzou to momentarily take sole possession of first-place in the Big 12, at 9-2 in conference play, a half-game ahead of Kansas and Baylor.

"It wasn't our best basketball," Mizzou coach Frank Haith said. "But on the road in the Big 12 it is not always going to be pretty and it's not easy."

The Tigers improved to 22-2 overall and face Baylor in Columbia, Mo., on Saturday, three days after the Bears and Jayhawks meet in Waco, Texas.

Oklahoma, which lost to MU by 38 points earlier this season in Columbia, fell to 13-10 and 3-8.

Between the margin of victory in the first game and Mizzou's all-consuming 74-71 thriller over Kansas on Saturday, Haith knew the Tigers could be vulnerable.

"You've got to fight against all of that," he said. "You worry about that false sense of what it's going to be like when they get here."

To minimize that as much as possible, Haith made the point that Oklahoma had done something MU hadn't: win at Kansas State.

"That was an eye-opener," he said.

So, too, was his postgame announcement Saturday that the team would be confined that night to a Columbia hotel instead of being free to roam in celebration.

Asked in front of Haith if it helped, Ratliffe and Marcus Denmon initially responded with silence, each looking at the other to speak.

"That's a tough question," Haith said, smiling.

Finally, Denmon said, "Yes, definitely, us getting rest is always good, and I thought that was a good move for us."

After Haith playfully told Denmon "good job," Denmon added, "Whether I wanted to go to the hotel or not, I understood."

Whether that helped or not, Denmon scored 25 as an encore to his 29-point performance against the Jayhawks. He hit nine of 16 shots from the field, making him 19 of 35 in the last two games following a funk in which he made 30 of 94.

Neither Haith nor Denmon would indulge any psychological mumbo-jumbo about the difference, instead suggesting Denmon's work ethic carried him through.

Mizzou used a 19-4 run late in the first half through early in the second to take a lead it would never relinquish. But the Tigers never could quite make it safe, either, on a night in which they were outrebounded 36-22.

While MU was uncharacteristically off-kilter from the free throw line, making only 10 of 18, Oklahoma was downright farcical, missing its first eight attempts and making just nine of 23 overall.

"The free throws were killer," said Pledger, an 89.7-percent free throw shooter entering the game who made just one of four. "I couldn't even understand why I was missing, let alone the rest of the team."

From the field, anyway. Before an audience of 5,036, the Sooners were scalding at the outset.

In contrast to its 18-of-54 shooting performance in Columbia, OU made its first six field goals on the way to a 29-23 lead on a Pledger 3-pointer. It finished 26 of 51.

But Phil Pressey's behind-the-back pass to Ratliffe (15 points) gave the Tigers a 36-33 lead at the break, capping a 13-4 run to end the half.

Mizzou led Oklahoma 43-25 at the half in their first meeting.

Denmon had 13 points in the half, and he opened the second with a 3-pointer and three free throws after a foul to complete the 19-4 run and make it 42-33.

The Tigers pried open a 10-point lead on a jumper by Michael Dixon, but Pledger hit his third and fourth 3s of the game to cut the lead to 50-46, and Sam Grooms connected for a second-chance basket to make it 55-52 MU.

Mizzou got back some breathing room on Dixon's pass to a back-cutting Matt Pressey and Dixon's layup after English stripped the ball from OU to make it 59-52.

But the Sooners cut it to 66-64 on another Pledger 3.

An English 3 with 53.6 seconds left made it 71-66, but OU's Andrew Fitzgerald made it 71-68 on two free throws with 41.6 to go.

Mizzou drained the shot clock, but Dixon missed a layup and Oklahoma got the ball back with five seconds left and a chance to tie.

To prevent OU from having the chance, Haith ordered a foul, in this case Denmon fouling Romero Osby with 2.5 seconds left before OU could get off a 3.

"With five (seconds) or less it's always been my deal, in terms of we foul," Haith said.

Osby missed both free throws, the second on purpose. But a tip-out went to Pledger, who missed just before the buzzer.