College Station, Texas ? Hollis Price thought he had given No. 3 Oklahoma a big enough lead. Then he had to save them at the end, too.

Price scored 15 of his 23 points in the first half, but had to make two free throws with seven seconds left as the Sooners almost blew a 17-point second-half lead before holding off Texas A&M, 69-64, Saturday.

“That’s why I think he’s the best player in this league,” Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. “He doesn’t get enough credit for what he does in every aspect of the game. As good as he was on offense today, he was just as good on defense.”

The Sooners (20-5 overall, 11-3 Big 12 Conference) withstood A&M’s pressing defense over the final five minutes to stretch their record to 19-1 over the Aggies, including the last eight in a row.

Texas A&M (13-12, 5-9) needs one more victory to have its first .500 season since 1994-95.

“We’ve got two games left,” A&M coach Melvin Watkins said. “We’ve got Baylor here and, of course, Oklahoma State on the road. This is the year we are playing for something, whereas in the past we’ve been out of the race.”

The Sooners seemingly had the game under control, leading 59-42 with 3:13 to play, but the Aggies rallied behind Bernard King, the Big 12’s all-time scoring leader who had three points at halftime.

King had 12 of his 17 points over the final eight minutes and the Aggies got within 67-64 with nine seconds left on King’s three-pointer. Price then hit his free throws to keep the Sooners ahead.

Sampson didn’t get too excited as the Aggies chipped away at the lead.

“I didn’t overreact to that,” Sampson said. “We were up 17. It’s kind of like our Kansas game, if you make your free throws there’s no coming back. Give A&M credit though. Those were some hellacious threes they were hitting.”

Oklahoma had a 32-point lead over Kansas University last week and held on for a 77-70 victory.

Price had 15 points as the Sooners took a 28-20 halftime lead.

“We just gave up a few too many offensive rebounds at the beginning, and we just didn’t stop Hollis Price,” A&M’s Tomas Ress said. “The guy had 15 points in the first half, and that really hurt us.”