Sooner Men's BB Wednesday's job: Get back on track, Win over WV

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Men's Basketball team has one mission on Wednesday night. Simply put, Get back on track with a win over West Virginia at home. Hopefully it will be an easy, maybe dominant win for the Sooners on Wednesday night. The Sooners need to play a strong game on Wednesday night.

It is a fact that the three conference games have been tough for the Sooners. Playing Iowa State at home, TCU in Ft. Worth and then up in Lawrence against Kansas was a tough 3 games stretch of games. Going 1-2 might be a little disappointing, but going 2-1 would have been very best they could have accomplished. So why did the Sooners and lose their two games by a total of 17 points?

Reduction of offensive scoring and allowing more points. Yep, that is how a team loses insead of winning. Here are some examples of the difference.

In pre-conference play, the Sooners scored 82.5 PPG and allowed 63.2 PPG. In conference, they have scored 69.33 and allowed 73.67. The Sooners have lost about 3 shots a game and allowed about 5 more shots. The Sooners have missed 6% more of their shots inside the arc and missed about 3% more of the shots outside the arc. Meanwhile their defensive numbers have gone up. The one number that has improved is the turnovers, which are down a little over 1 mis-handled ball a game.

Individually, only Milos Uzan has upped his game. He has moved from 8.2 PPG up to 13.3 PPG. Javian McCollum is playing slightly better as he has scored 16.3 PPG compared to 15.3 PPG. The other 6 players in the rotation have decreased their output per game a combined total of 16.5 PPG. Ouch! Oweh has decreased the most with a 6.6 PPG drop. Some of that is that fouls put him on the bench in one game. the same can be said for basically the four bigs for OU (Godwin, Hugley IV, Moore and Soares). But Moore and Soares are rebounding better, at 3.3 more boards a game.

Is it possible that the Big 12 "is playing on their minds"? Perhaps so. The Sooners need to forget it is Big 12 play, I think. Just go play the game. Be bold a bit and go make a positive play and do not commit to many foolish fouls or try to do more than you can. Try to make sure that each of the Sooners are having fun instead of looking their their teeth are being pulled. I think that can go for Coach Moser as well. At times, he is visible upset by the Sooners play. That is okay, but let go of it and smile and look for a reason to be pleased at times might help.

Pressure or competition is either accepted by a player or it is sometimes feared. Some say it is an opportunity. Maybe the men should look just north of them at the Sooner softball players. They accept pressure and accept competition and say things like it is a privilege and that it is welcomed. They say things like, they have put in the work before the game and they trust their work and trust that the outcome will be as it should be. It is a bit amazing how they accept it. I don't think the men basketballers have that thought. It is hard to play to win, when you are trying not to lose.

I think the Sooners have the opportunity to get back on track big time against West Virginia by just playing basketball at home. West Virginia has stumbled in conference play as well. they have used three different starting lineups in the three games. Two players, both guards have started all 3 games. Battle and Krisa have scored 24 PPG in conference compared to 30.5 PPG. OU needs to make sure that trends continues with good defense on both of them. Krisa will shoot a 3 also. West Virginia plays four big that are all between 6'7" and 6'10" and all four have started in conference with only Suemnick and Harris starting twice. Suemnick is playing better in conference than he did in preseason. I think OU needs to play him tough in the game. He is 6'8" and 235 so he has some size. Harris is 6'7" and 215 and rebounds more than he scores. Sluzinski is another forward who is 6'9" 230 who was scoring in double digits before conference play but has slowed down in conference. He will shoot a 3 also. Three other guards fill out the playing rotation with Farrakhan (6'1") starting 2 of the conference games. Farrakhan's production has slowed in conference as well but he did score in double digits in non-conference.

West Virginia does not shoot the ball as well as Oklahoma and they have only made 6.3 three's per game in conference. The Mountaineers do get to the foul line though with 28 free throws per game and they make over 20 of them. I do think OU will out-rebound West Virginia by looking at the stats and they handle the ball well even at 1-2 in conference.

West Virginia has also played without a player named Edwards after the 10th game of the season. I do not know what his injury is. But he played well with 15 PPG and 9 Rebounds and is a big (6'11" - 240)that plays inside. If he plays, he could be cause concern.

I would like to see Oklahoma just come out and use that 3/4 press again and just play basketball with a little tempo and a confidence. That should be what is needed and they can even their conference record at 2-2.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the West Virginia at Oklahoma game tonight.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/16 ... -wednesday

The Big 12 conference contest will air on the Sooner Sports Radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Varsity Radio App) with Toby Rowland and Kevin Henry announcing and be broadcast by ESPN+ with Ted Emrich (PxP) and Tim Welsh (analyst) on the call.

Good luck to the Sooners tonight.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

Sooners win 78-64. They started slow and were down 6 halfway through the first half. Then caught f I re and were up 4 at the half. OU controlled the 2nd half and won going away.

Now they go to Cincinnati, who beat TCU tonight.

[EMan]

As Swamp said, the Sooners trailed 18-12 midway through the first half and then it was the Jalon Moore Show, as the Sooners rattled off 8 straight. OU led by double digits most of the second half and controlled the boards with a whopping 33-19 advantage. The one concerning area is the shooting slump Otega Oweh remains in. Yes, he had a double-double with 12 pts, 10 rebounds and 5 assists (a good contribution on the night) but he started 0-8 from the field and just can't seem to find his outside shot, even going 2-5 from the line. Everything he made was a layup or dunk. I'm certainly not complaining about that but for this team to get back to seriously competing with the upper echelon, especially on the road, the Sooners have to have him get back on track with his outside shooting. It should come around, he's too good of a player, but I sure hope it happens sooner than later.

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners started slowly last night. But, I think I know the reason why. I had some work being done at my house and they did not finish until about 7:20 last night. So I was watching the game on TV, until they left and then drove my short 1.5 mile drive to LNC, walked in quickly and took my seat. Yes, I was listening to Toby Rowland on the radio while driving. The score was in the neighborhood of 12-18 in favor of West Virginia when I got out of my car. When I walked into the stadium through the metal detectors, there was a time out on the floor. I think that was the media timeout at the 7:23 mark of the first half and West Virginia was ahead 18-12. Well, thanks to me, the Sooners kicked it in gear and took the lead in the those last 7 minutes to lead 29-25 by outscoring WV 17-7 in that stretch. (Yes, all that is tongue in cheek. You could turn it and say it was my fault they were behind because I was not there.) But anyway, back to the game.

As I have done before, the men's games can be broken down to four or five minute increments. Last night, in the first 4 minutes the Sooners outscored WV 8-5 and led. Over the next two 4 minute periods, the Sooners scored 4 points while WV scored 13 and took that 18-12 lead. The last eight minutes of the 1st half, the Sooners upped their game and outscored WV 17-7 to take that 4 point halftime lead at 29-25.

In the second half, OU did well in 4 of the 5, four minute slices of the half as that outscored WV 39-27. In the remaining 4 minute slice of game time, WV slightly beat OU 11-9. But even then OU scored 9 points. If a team can score about 8 points in each 4 minute slice of time, they can be successful most of the time as that will yield 80 points a game. Last night, the slow 8 minutes from the 16 minute mark to the 8 minute mark of the 1st half, caused OU to fall behind and have to come back for the win. The Sooners need to avoid those type of swoons during a game. In that 8 minutes of play, I think OU was 1 for 10 from the field and committed 3 turnovers with 2 free throws made.

Here is the Soner staff writers article about the Sooner win last night.
https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/17 ... untaineers

The main thing was to win the game and Oklahoma did that last night. I thought the two transition forwards of Jalon Moore and Rivaldo Soares led the way, IMO. Moore scored 16 points on 11 shots and pulled down 5 rebounds, Soares scored 13 points on only 4 shots as he was 5 of 6 from the free throw line and had 2 three's with 3 rebounds. I have hoped for these two to play this type of a game for OU. To me they can make a difference with the combination of good offense and good defense and rebounding. At least 2 or 3 times a game one of the two players just rise above the other team's player and grabs a rebound. It is quick when they do it. They both have the ability to leap quickly. McCollum also made a lot out of not many shots last night. He scored 13 points on only 4 shots as he was 8 for 8 from the free throw line. McCollum got 'beat up' last night by the Mountaineers with their physical play against him. Oweh played a strong second half after only tallying 3 rebounds in the first half. In the second half, Oweh scored 12 points and pulled down another 7 rebounds for a double-double on the night. I think that was Oweh's first double-double of his career. Uzan and Hugley IV added 8 points also. Godwin had 5 rebounds also.

Oklahoma won just about every sub-category of the game. They shot better than WV from all three areas of the floor, they scored more in the paint, more second chance points, more rebounds (by 14), more fast break points, more bench points. The only blemish was the 19 turnovers which lead to 17 points for WV against 16 for OU on the 16 turnovers committed by WV.

The Sooners are now 2-2 in conference and 14-3 overall. There are not undefeated teams in conference with Baylor and Texas Tech getting beat in games on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Four teams are 3-1 and seven teams are 2-2. So the Big 12 dogfight is still ongoing and will continue all conference season long. Home teams have now won 71.4% of the time. Any team who can pick up a win on the road, picks up almost a full game in the standings. Holding serve at home and winning is required or a team loses almost a full game in the standings.

Oklahoma travels to Cincinnati for Saturday's game. Cincy is 2-2 as they are 1-1 at home and 1-1 on the road. The Sooners need to win this road game on Saturday. A quick google search shows that OU has played Cincinnati twice and lost both, 66-565 and 56-55. The games were played in 2010 and 2011. Both games were at 'neutral' courts but one was in OKC at the Ford Center.

Good luck to the Sooners on Saturday.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

As Swamp said, the Sooners trailed 18-12 midway through the first half and then it was the Jalon Moore Show, as the Sooners rattled off 8 straight. OU led by double digits most of the second half and controlled the boards with a whopping 33-19 advantage. The one concerning area is the shooting slump Otega Oweh remains in. Yes, he had a double-double with 12 pts, 10 rebounds and 5 assists (a good contribution on the night) but he started 0-8 from the field and just can't seem to find his outside shot, even going 2-5 from the line. Everything he made was a layup or dunk. I'm certainly not complaining about that but for this team to get back to seriously competing with the upper echelon, especially on the road, the Sooners have to have him get back on track with his outside shooting. It should come around, he's too good of a player, but I sure hope it happens sooner than later.

Oweh has a bit of a pause or a hitch in his shot as the ball gets in shooting position and his hands rotate to shoot. I think this hitch or pause is growing longer as if he is thinking about it. You see it better on the free shots. He is usually picking up a tough player to guard on defense in Big 12 play, that might be part of it as well. But yes, he is not playing as well as he did earlier in the year.