Guard, Tony Crocker (5), dunks the ball during the game against Louisiana-Monroe on Tuesday night in the Lloyd Noble Center. Marcin Rutkowski/The Daily

The Sooners managed to pull out a 72-61 win against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks despite a careless first half where OU shot 34 percent from the field and committed nine turnovers.

The Warhawks started off red hot from downtown and communicated right off the bat that they were in love with the three-ball. However, they eventually cooled off as the Sooners held them at 4-11 for the half.

The Sooners played a sloppy game, head coach Jeff Capel said. For the game, they committed 13 turnovers and shot 6-17 from the arc after a 1-7 first half start.

“A win is a win, it wasn’t pretty,” Capel said. “We didn’t come out with the energy that we need to come out with. It took us getting down and getting punched in the mouth for us to start finally punching back.”

“It’s a great lesson for our guys because we played early in that game like we practiced yesterday,”Capel said.

Sophomore guard Willie Warren had himself a game with 24 points and four assists, further proving why he is a National Player of the Year candidate.

Warren was one of the few Sooners who were on their game the entire night.

Junior guard Cade Davis came off the bench and gave the team a huge lift, Capel said.

He was talking and showed great leadership while hitting a several key shots and finishing with nine points in 28 minutes.

Freshman center Tiny Gallon put up good numbers again, but looked a little tired and needs to work on his conditioning, said Capel. He had just 3 points tonight but grabbed 10 rebounds.

Senior guard/forward Tony Crocker had his biggest game of the season with 13 points and three boards. Crocker had a great night after only putting up four points Saturday against Mount St. Mary’s. He saw a lot of his 34 minutes in at forward, covering some of the bigger guys for the Warhawks.

“It’s a confidence builder going into the next game knowing what you can do,” Crocker said. “It just helps out your confidence really and gets you going and that way you can bring more energy and help out the team.”

Freshman guard Steven Pledger put up eight points after a 21-point performance on Saturday.

And while he didn’t play like he did this past weekend, Capel had a lot of good things to say about him.

“He’s still going to shoot it and we need him to shoot it,” Capel said. “But the thing I love is that you can coach him. HJe doesn’t sulk, doesn’t drop his head. He had 16 minutes tonight and he was just as happy as can be about that. We need a team full of guys like that.”

The Sooners wait to play their next home game against a tough Arkansas team Dec. 2.

The team will continue season play with a road matchup at Virginia Commonwealth Saturday.