MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Forget the Syracuse zone. Oklahoma's Tony Crocker was in a zone of his own Friday night.

The Sooners' mercurial long-range specialist emerged on the other side of a 1-for-March shooting slump less than a minute into Friday's South Region semifinal.

With a career-high 28 points, Crocker played the difference-maker in OU's surprisingly easy 84-71 victory over Syracuse that propelled the Sooners into the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight for the first time since 2003. They will face North Carolina on Sunday.

"When you're struggling, after awhile, making that first shot always makes it better," said Crocker, who had missed 15 of the 16 3s he had previously taken this month. "The zone gave us a lot of spots to have open shots, so we just tried to take advantage of it."

And they did. OU shot 54.2 percent for the game and made 18-of-32 field goals in the second half. At the same time, the Sooners forced 18 turnovers and handcuffed the highest-scoring team in the Big East by frequently switching from man to their own zone.

"Oklahoma was just a better team than us tonight," Syracuse point guard Jonny Flynn said. "Blake Griffin was as good as advertised (30 points, 14 rebounds), and Crocker came out there and had a tremendous shooting night."

Crocker popped the ice-breaker, and the Sooners never trailed. He punctuated a 14-point first half with another bomb that connected with less than four seconds left to give OU a 13-point cushion.

He also hit a pair of 3s in a 14-3 run to open the second half that left the Orange looking at each other.

"I could see they were really frustrated," point guard Austin Johnson said. "And we really had it going."

Crocker certainly did. As he devoured a sandwich Thursday afternoon in the Sooners' locker room deep in the FedExForum, Crocker had predicted that he was due to break out.

But he wasn't biting off more than he could chew. After last Sunday's 0-for-6 afternoon in the second-round victory over Michigan, Crocker spent much of the week shooting before and after practice. And shooting some more. Shooting until he made 200 that particular day.

"I saw him in there every day both before and after practice," Johnson said. "And in shoot-arounds this week, every time he'd make a shot we'd all congratulate him and tell him to be ready to shoot those in games.

"When he gets into a slump, he keeps shooting and playing hard. Obviously, the way he shot it tonight, it paid off big-time."

Griffin agreed.

"They had to respect [Tony] all game long because he was hitting shots all game long," he said. "I think it takes our team to another level when he plays like he did."