Oklahoma (4-1) Women BB is on the road at Houston (2-4) on Sat

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Basketball Team will be on the road to play Houston on Saturday in a 6 PM game. The Sooners are 4-1 in the Big 12 and 10-6 overall. Houston is 2-4 in Big 12 play and 11-6 overall. The game will be televised on ESPN+.

Houston has been a real Heckle and Jeckle team in the Big 12 play so far. They have scored 75.2 Pts/G at home but only 45.0 Pts/G on the road. That is an amazing difference. Houston is coming off a long road trip to West Virginia on Wednesday night. OU had a mid-week bye this week. The point difference makes it easy to see why that Houston is 201 at home and 0-3on the road in Big 12 play. OU is 3-0 at home and 1-1 on the road. Houston is a veteran team as only 2 players that play are less than a senior this year. It is hard to understand Houston's play on the road.

Houston is led by Laila Blair (#14 G SR 5'8") as she scored 16.7 PPG. The next best scorer is N'Yah Boyd (#5 G GRAD 5'6") who scored 8.0 PPG. Houston starts 2 guards and 3 forwards. They follow with six other substitutes that are made up of 3 guards and 3 forwards. The forwards for Houston are 5'11", 6'1" and 6'4" as starters and 6'0", 6'3" and 6'3" off the bench. If the bigs for Houston have trouble getting up and down the floor, they could have to play more guards due to OU's desire to play at a fast pace. Since OU puts up 11 more shots a game, that may be the case. If OU can't run off the Houston bigs off the floor, the Sooners will have to depend on Verhulst inside on defense.

Houston shoots a little better on 3' and a little worse from the free throw line, but about the same from the floor. But that is Houston's combined Big 12 stats. At home they must shoot better due to the scoring difference. So maybe Houston does shoot better than OU. Despite being smaller as a team, OU out rebounds the Cougars. Houston turns the ball over about 5 more times a game than OU and OU has about 8 more assists/steals a game.

There are 3 common games for OU and Houston. Both have played K-State, Tech and BYU. Both lost to K-State on the road. Both teams defeated Texas Tech on their home court. OU defeated BYU on the road and Houston defeated BYU at home. I guess that indicates that OU might be the better team as they won the BYU game on the road. But Houston seems to be a much better team at home, than on the road.

OU can win the game if they play well inside (watching foul trouble) and if they run efficiently and often and cause a few extra turnovers by Houston in open court. The shooting has to be decent for the Sooners also. But, it is not a win that is given to OU with Houston playing at home. The key players for the Sooners might be Verhulst, Williams and Johnson on the boards and on defense. Vann will be a solid constant for OU as she just usually play well as she leads OU in scoring and rebounds. If a Sooner can get hot from the outside it would help as well. Keys, Joens and Tot are due in my mind.

Good luck to the Sooners in Houston tomorrow night.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

Sooners win 71-65.

[EMan]

Far from a clean game. A lot of turnovers via lazy/ill-advised passes. But like the men earlier, they made the plays they needed to at the end to pull out the W. Good road win.

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Basketball Team proved one thing last night against the Houston Cougars. You do not necessarily have to play a perfect gain to win on the road in the Big 12, you just have to score more points than the other team, which Oklahoma did as they won 71-65 over Houston. The Sooners did play well in most of the phrases of the game but last night those bug-a-boo turnovers and sloppy play jumped up and almost caused a problem for the Sooners. Houston also pulled down 15 offensive rebounds during the game which is not ideal. Houston took advantage of those two factors by outscoring the Sooners on points over turnovers 20 points to 10 and on second chance points from the offensive rebounds 11 to 9. OU made up that 31 to 19 point difference by shooting well. Despite shooting 14 less shots than Houston, the Sooners made 3 more buckets including 2 more free throws to generate the 6 point win.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Sooners 5th win in conference last night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/20 ... at-houston

Skylar Vann was the best player on the floor much of the game as she scored 21 points on 10 of 15 shots including a 3-pointer as she pulled down 5 rebounds and had 4 assists. She was in foul trouble a bit in the final quarter but did return to play the last 3-ish minutes to help OU nail down the win. When Vann was on the floor, the Sooners outscored Houston by 18 points. The next best sooner in '+/-' was Johnson with a +6. Peyton Verhulst played well also as she scored 18 points on 7 of 13 shots and added 4 assists. Tot and Keyes added 16 points between them on 5 of 8 shots including 3 of 4 free shots and 3 of 6 from 3-point territory. Tot had 6 assists. The remaining starter, Williams, led the Sooners in rebounds with 8 but did not score in the game. Off the bench, Johnson scored 8 points and pulled down 4 rebounds in 14 + minutes. Kennedy Tucker added 4 points in 16 minutes while playing good defense on two different Houston scorers. The remaining 4 points were scored by Joens and Culliton as both scored one bucket. Culliton also pulled down 5 rebounds.

Back to the good shooting, Oklahoma shot 23 of 41 shots inside the arc for 56.1%. They also shot 40% from outside the arc on 6 of 15 shooting. OU was 7 of 8 from the free throw line. But the 56 shots by Oklahoma was the lowest total except for their 55 shots against Southern in a disappointing home loss. Oklahoma did out-rebound Houston 42 to 33 but there were those 15 offensive rebounds that OU allowed. Jones and McFarland had 7 offensive boards between them for Houston. The Sooners had 23 assists on 39 made shots, which is a good mark. OU also had 6 steals and 6 blocks in the game as Houston turned the ball over 13 times. To many times the Sooners turned the ball over on a pass that was not open, or on a pass that had little chance of being successful down the court. Dribbling the ball, at times proved to be difficult for the Sooners as they had 3 or 4 basic dribbling issues.

The usual first half rotation for Oklahoma was used as all 11 players played. But for the second time in two games, the Sooner player rotation was more game influenced than just a regular, planned rotation I think. Last night, Tucker and Johnson was the main subs off the bench as they both played more than 7 and a half minutes. Tot, Verhulst, Keys and Vann all played more than 14 minutes in the second half and 30+ minutes in the game which is more than they average by a good margin. For the game, both Tucker and Johnson played more minutes than did Williams. I must admit that the second half rotation was handled well I thought. Culliton had some key minutes in the second half also when Vann was in a bit of foul trouble.

The Sooners are 5-1 in Big 12 play and are in 3rd place behind the undefeated K-State Wildcats and the 6-1 Iowa State Cyclones. K-State won yesterday over Kansas State but played without Ayoka Lee. In last Saturday's game against Texas. She played through and ankle injury in that game. After returning to the Little Apple, she had a precautionary MRI and a fracture was found in the ankle. Lee will be out for about 4 weeks. We will see if K-State can keep up their stellar play without Lee. Iowa State was the benefactor of a forfeit from TCU due to a player shortage on Saturday. Texas and West Virginia follow in a tie for 4th place at 5-2 in conference.

Oklahoma is on the road again on Wednesday night in Austin to play the Longhorns in a 6 PM game that will be on ESPNU. Texas is a long, physical team that plays well at home. Of the cuff my thoughts are that OU will have to play very well (limit turnovers and offensive rebounds) and shoot the ball well to play with Texas on the road. OU will have to play probably their best game of the year to be in a position to win the game against Texas. Texas won at Oklahoma State on Saturday by 10 points coasting through the 4th quarter. Texas had four players who scored in double digits against OSU.

Oklahoma played well enough to win last night over Houston. They need to dial up their game significantly to play with Texas.

Boomer Sooner!