With four straight Willie Warren free throws in the final 26 seconds of OU's 66-61 win Saturday against Missouri, the Sooners' season may have switched from one of chaos to one with a chance.

Warren's free tosses, the final four of his game-high 21 points, led OU to its second straight win in Big 12 play and pushed the Sooners one game further away from a 9-5 non-conference record and a 31-point blowout at Baylor to open the conference season.

"We can't go back and change that," OU head coach Jeff Capel said. "We can't go back and change those losses. Hopefully we've … learned from it … and hopefully we won't have those lapses again."

Warren finished with eight makes in as many tries from the foul line Saturday, a far cry from the sophomore guard's 5-of-10 performance at the line Monday against Oklahoma State.

"Ever since the Baylor game, that's the worst deficit since being here at OU, and that's something I never want to be a part of again," Warren said. "We've turned it around a lot. We know that we still have a chance, a huge chance, actually to go to the NCAA tournament."

Whether it was that, a better 3-point shooting performance (3-of-7 versus 0-for-3) or a three-point play which gave OU the lead for good with 6:59 remaining in the game, Warren avoided a second-straight home court booing session.

"I got booed at Duke my senior year at home against Florida State, and it crushed me that it happened," said Capel, a former point guard for the Blue Devils. "It turned out to be one of the best things to happen for me. My teammates rallied around me and I ended up having a great second half to my senior season."

The Tigers (14-4 overall, 2-1 Big 12) opened the game on a 10-0 run, a surge OU (11-6, 2-1) aided by turning the ball over seven times while taking just five shots to open the game.

Senior guard Tony Crocker also twisted an ankle during Missouri's run, leaving OU without its only senior starter and his 6-foot-6 frame he uses to bring down nearly seven rebounds a game. He missed all but two minutes of the first half, and played just briefly in the second.

Freshman center Tiny Gallon also struggled early, missing a pair of shots in the paint. Capel decided to put all six feet, nine inches, 290 pounds and nine-plus boards per contest on the bench less than seven minutes into the game. Gallon would not return until 2:14 remained in the second half, and he did not score.

"This is a game of men," Capel said. "This is a game for men, and if you're going to be soft, you can't play in this game. That's one of the reasons Tiny didn't play that much in this game."

Junior guard Cade Davis moved from his guard position to take over for Crocker at the power forward position, while senior forward Ryan Wright took most of Gallon's playing time.

"This whole week in practice, I've just been trying to be aggressive," Wright said. "Trying to finish everything around the rim, trying to get every rebound. That's what the team needs from me, just to be that guy who is going to bring that aggressiveness and that toughness."

And, despite Davis needing two doses of intravenous solution before the game and another IV during halftime because of an illness, the duo stepped into their new roles without struggling, combining to score 27 points and pull down 19 rebounds.

"Thank goodness [Davis] had some toughness in him and he wanted to play, because he was phenomenal," Capel said. "That's the best he's played since he's been here."

Capel said a virus has been traveling around the OU team.

Davis, normally a 3-point specialist (more than two-thirds of his career field goals have been from behind the arc), did most of his work Saturday from inside. He finished with 15 points while hitting just one 3 and pulled down 11 rebounds.

"After the Oklahoma State game, I watched a little tape with him," Capel said. "And I felt like he was settling for 3s too much … I thought he did a good job of being aggressive and attacking the basket."

With the patchwork line up, OU managed to pull even with Mizzou twice in the first half, but the Sooners did not take a lead until freshman guard Stephen Pledger hit a 3 with 16:55 remaining in the second half to put the Sooners ahead 36-34.

The Tigers quickly retook the lead, but could never get more than six points ahead of the Sooners before Warren's three-point play capped a 12-2 run.

Missouri's self-described "fastest 40 minutes of basketball" provided mixed results. OU turned the ball over 20 times against just 10 assists, but Mizzou managed just 4 fast-break points. OU finished with 13 points in transition.

"We had some opportunities to get some fast-break points and we're not finishing," Missouri head coach Mike Anderson said. "When you do that, you're always putting yourself in the hole."

The Tigers hit just 35.9 percent of their attempts from the field, and OU out-rebounded Mizzou 44-35.

OU will be at Texas A&M for a 7 p.m. Tuesday game. They are back at Lloyd Noble Center Jan. 27 to take on Iowa State.

"The past two games have been good," Capel said. "We'll see how we are on the road. It's a little bit easier to do it at home, especially with the crowd we've had the past couple of games."