NORMAN — Lexy Keys felt good about the shot.

Of course, the OU senior guard felt good about the other two 3-pointers she launched in the final minute of Wednesday’s matchup with No. 3 Texas.

This one was different, though.

This was one the Sooners had to have, and this one the Sooners got.

Keys’ drained a three with 4.5 seconds left to lift No. 20 OU to a stunning 71-70 victory over the Longhorns at Lloyd Noble Center to clinch the Big 12 regular-season title.

“I think I ended up in the right place at the right time getting there,” Keys said. “But I think we just continued as a team to just keep playing hard and we’ve been talking about in practice just ‘finish plays, finish plays.’ And I think that was a gutsy win on everyone’s part.”

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The game was a microcosm of the Sooners’ season.

They fought through plenty of adversity — trailing by as much as 13 in the first quarter, 15 early in the second and still behind by nine with less than nine minutes remaining.

Skylar Vann, their leader who was especially important against a Longhorns team that came control the paint, battled four trouble and injury to come up with a critical play late.

OU shot just 35.7% yet outrebounded the Longhorns 47-30, pulling down 21 offensive rebounds and winning the second-chance points battle 13-6.

The Sooners had seven of those offensive rebounds in the final minute, setting up Vann’s free throw with 26 seconds left to cut the deficit to two, and then on that final possession, when Vann followed up her own missed layup by chasing the ball down and spinning in the corner to find Keys a few feet away for the 3-pointer right in front of OU’s bench in the closing seconds.

“Well, how ’bout that one everybody?” Sooners coach Jennie Baranczyk said as she entered the post-game interview room.

It’s been that kind of season for OU.

The Sooners stumbled through Thanksgiving to Christmas, losing five of six games and looking far from an NCAA Tournament team, much less a Big 12 champion.

But Baranczyk kept her team invested and the Sooners rolled through much of conference play with only a loss at Kansas State and at West Virginia.

“I’m really proud that we didn’t quit in December,” Baranczyk said, her voice quivering and hands steadying to grasp the cup of hot tea in front of her that worked to sooth her hoarse voice. “And I’m really proud — and when I say we, the players aren’t going to quit. They’re going to follow whatever we do. When it’s we, it’s not just a coach. It’s our academic advisor. It’s our athletic trainer, strength coach, marketing people. You name it. The number of people that impact these young women on a daily basis.”

The Sooners now close out the regular season against Kansas at 4 p.m. Saturday in Lawrence, before opening the Big 12 Tournament as the No. 1 seed a week later in Kansas City.

For now, they’ll enjoy this victory.

“I think we just kind of double down and trust in each other,” Payton Verhulst said. “Trust in the people that we’ve had there, and trust the play calls that we had, trust our defense.

“I feel like we work all year on trust and building our chemistry and so that’s what we can rely on in games like that.”

Here are three more takeaways on the win:

Texas has chances to close out

On their drive to the arena earlier Wednesday, Jennie Baranczyk’s son, Eli, had something to say.

“You know the worst thing?” Eli asked. “When you’re up one and there’s five seconds left.”

After the game, Baranczyk laughed at the memory, but understood where Eli was coming from.

Even after Keys’ shot, the Sooners still had to guard the Longhorns.

“I think we were really convicted,” Baranczyk said.

Texas fed it to Madison Booker, who drove in on Keys and Vann. Vann kept her arms straight up in the air, and the ball fell harmlessly as time expired.

Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer was clearly perturbed by the officiating, especially late.

Particularly upsetting to him was the travel call on Booker with 13.4 seconds left that gave OU the ball back for Keys’ game-winner.

“I don’t want to comment about it because I can probably get in trouble,” Schaefer said. “It is what it is. … We obviously had way more issues than they did. I thought we had secured the ball on the one possession where we dribbled it down the floor but we didn’t really have it. I’ll have to go back and look at it but I’m disappointed that something like that happens in a game of those magnitude.”

Though he was upset, Schaefer heaped praise on Baranczyk and the Sooners.

“That’s a hard team to guard,” Schaefer said. “That’s like guarding an NBA team. … Her teams, they execute, they have great chemistry.”

Skylar Vann comes back from injury

In the opening minute of the second quarter, with things already stacked against the Sooners, disaster struck.

A loss, the Sooners could handle.

The loss of their leader, Skylar Vann, for any length of time might be too much to overcome.

But Vann took the brunt of a collision with Aaliyah Moore and crumpled to the ground.

Baranczyk rushed over to check on her senior leader, who was called for her second foul of the game on the play.

Vann, avoiding putting weight on her right leg, was helped off the court by a pair of trainers and into the tunnel.

A few minutes later, Vann returned to the bench under her own power, moving confidently.

Vann remained on the bench for the rest of the half.

When the Sooners returned to the court for warmups, Vann tested her leg by doing several stop-start drills and then cutting laterally a few times before joining her teammates for warmups.

Vann returned to the lineup to start the second half, but was called for a third foul less than two minutes into the quarter.

Dueling buzzer-beaters

A pair of buzzer-beaters each went the Sooners way at the finish of each of the first two quarters.

Texas dominated the first quarter and that seemed to continue when Sahara Williams was called for an offensive foul in the closing seconds, and Madison Booker quickly followed with a half-court shot to seemingly put the Longhorns up 24-10 after one quarter.

But after review, Booker’s shot was negated.

The Sooners got the ball back with 30.1 seconds left in the second after a pair of Longhorns free throws and held on for a last shot, but Texas’ Aaliyah Moore was called for a foul with less than two seconds remaining.

The inbounds pass went to Payton Verhulst, who hit a fadeaway jumper at the buzzer to cut the deficit to one, 38-38, at the break.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma rallies past Texas to capture Big 12 women's basketball title