OU Men's BB Texas Tomorrow @ 1 PM at LNC - Sooners Want a Win!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners Men's Basketball Team (9-3) hosts Texas (10-1) in Lloyd Noble Center on Saturday at 1 PM. The game can be streamed on ESPN+ with a subscription.

The Longhorns are ranked 6th in both major polls and will come into LNC as the favorite over the Sooners. Here is the staff writers article about the game tomorrow.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/12/3 ... ig-12-play

I was surprised to see that the Longhorns are really about the same size as the Sooners as they start two guards, and three forwards as they will go 6'0" Hunter, 6'2" Carr, 6'6" Allen, 6'8" Mitchell and 6'9" Disu. The first two players off the bench are also guards in 6'3" Morris and 6'4" Rice.

The biggest difference in the two teams to me is that Texas puts up 13 more shots and scores 14.8 more points than the Sooners per game, yet Oklahoma shoots the ball slightly better in all 3 types of shots. Another difference is that Texas has 30 more steals than OU on the season. That equals about 3 a game. It also looks like Texas gets quite a few offensive rebounds.

From that I would say the Sooners needs to rebound well on the defensive end tomorrow. They also need to handle the ball well and be equal in turnovers and steal in the game. That will help the Sooners to slow the game and equalize the shots for the Longhorns to something very close to what OU is able to put up. If they can do those things, they probably will outshoot the Longhorns which can lead to a win. A game with the scoring in the mid-60's benefits OU. A game with scoring closer to 80 points greatly benefits Texas I think.

The game may come down to guard play. If Sherfield, Uzan, Cortes and Nolan can play even with the Texas guards, the Sooners inside may be able to take advantage of the Texas inside players. The game could be in the hands of Tanner and Jacob Groves, Hill and Godwin. Without seeing Texas, their guards might have a tough time of outplaying the Sooner guards if the Sooners play well. If one of the Groves brothers play well, that could be the difference.

Elsewhere in Big 12 play tomorrow, the top half of the league from what the pollsters think, is facing the bottom half. Kansas hosts OSU and should win. Baylor is at Iowa State. TCU is hosting Texas Tech and West Virginia is at Kansas State. West Virginia, TCU and Baylor could be upset playing on the road against good solid Big 12 teams. OU might surprise a lot of people in Coach Moser's opening game of his second trip through the Big 12 schedule.

I will be there supporting the Sooner Men!

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

The two paragraphs below is what I mentioned in my pre-game article.

"The biggest difference in the two teams to me is that Texas puts up 13 more shots and scores 14.8 more points than the Sooners per game, yet Oklahoma shoots the ball slightly better in all 3 types of shots. Another difference is that Texas has 30 more steals than OU on the season. That equals about 3 a game. It also looks like Texas gets quite a few offensive rebounds.

From that I would say the Sooners needs to rebound well on the defensive end tomorrow. They also need to handle the ball well and be equal in turnovers and steal in the game. That will help the Sooners to slow the game and equalize the shots for the Longhorns to something very close to what OU is able to put up. If they can do those things, they probably will outshoot the Longhorns which can lead to a win. A game with the scoring in the mid-60's benefits OU. A game with scoring closer to 80 points greatly benefits Texas I think."

Oklahoma almost pulled off each of those items and it almost led to a win by the Sooners over Texas.

* Shots - OU put up 56 to the 58 for Texas. Just what they needed to do.

* Shooting % - OU shot 48.1% from the field and 34.0 from 3-point. Texas shot 43.1% from the field and 33.3% from 3-point. But the Free Throws was a problem. Texas shot 16 and made 15. OU shot 11 and made 8, those 7 points were a big key to the Texas victory. As has been noted, a few of the free throws were questionable calls on OU.

* OU almost was successful on the turnovers an steals also. OU had 15 which is not a bad number at all, but Texas only had 11 which is very good. Texas had 2 more steals than OU with a 9 to 7 edge. A couple less turnovers would have helped for OU.

* The Sooners rebounded well. Texas had 33 boards to OU's 31. Texas also had 12 offensive rebounds to OU's 9. Nothing there really points to a Texas advantage that made a big difference. The 2nd chance points were 12 for OU and 11 for Texas, in fact.

* The Texas bench did its job in the game as they outscored the Sooners bench 27-5. But that also means the Sooners starters outscored the Texas starters 64 to 43.

* The game score was 70-69 which was at the pace needed for OU to be successful. Although a three at the buzzer by Jacob Groves made it a 1-point game.

In just about every way, the Sooners did everything they needed to do to win the game except the free shots and foul differential which favored Texas.

One couple things that I think that needs to be addressed for the Sooners are these.

* When Tanner Groves is on the floor, the Sooner offense operates a long way from the bucket because of the use of the high screen by Groves. After the pick by Groves the guard can not penetrate, the offense becomes stagnant. At times yesterday the offense reduced to a player with the ball dribbling and four guys standing on their spot hoping to receive a pass.

* When Godwin in in the game, the offense seems different to me. There is more cutting to the bucket and Godwin operates down low mostly which increases spacing around the arc by the other players. Maybe it is just my imagination. But it seems a bit different. There is more space for the player with the ball to make things happen.

It boiled down to a couple of three-point shots by the Sooners that did not fall in the last couple of minutes of play. If either of those shots fall, the Sooners probably win the game. Texas also did not miss a free throw down the stretch.

Sherfield scored 22 with Jacob Groves and Hill adding 17 and 14. Tanner Groves and Godwin had 12 rebounds with Hill adding 6 more.

It is back to the drawing board for OU as they face Iowa State in Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday at 6 PM. Iowa State beat Baylor yesterday by 15 at home in Ames, IA in surprisingly easy fashion.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, Kansas had to battle back from being 15 down to Okahoma State but won at home over OSU 69-67. It sounds like the refs almost swallowed all three whistled on the last play as OSU tried to score inside to tie the game in Lawrence. (That sounds familiar also.) TCU defeated Texas Tech 67-61 in Ft. Worth and Kansas State won over West Virginia 82-76 in Manhattan. In the four of the five games the biggest point differential was 6 points with one upset by Iowa State. It is always a tough Big 12 journey and it looks to be true again in 2023.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the staff writers article about the 1-point loss to Texas yesterday to open Big 12 play. (I could not get the url to connect to the link.)

NORMAN – Oklahoma men's basketball dropped its Big 12 opener against No. 6/6 Texas 70-69 Saturday afternoon at Lloyd Noble Center.

Grant Sherfield led the Sooners with 22 points, scoring 16 in the first half. Jacob Groves added 17 points and finished 5 of 9 from deep. Jalen Hill tallied 14 points and grabbed six boards. Tanner Groves wrangled a team-best seven rebounds and Milos Uzan dished out five assists.

"Whether you win or lose in the upcoming weeks, you have got to know why you won or why you lost, address it and put it in the bank," said Oklahoma head men's basketball coach Porter Moser. "Then turn right around and get it."

In a contest that witnessed nine lead changes, Oklahoma entered halftime with a four-point advantage and outscored the Longhorns 12-5 over the final five minutes of the half.

Sherfield buried a 3-pointer to start the 10-point streak and finished it with a fadeaway jumper that also saw him end up at the charity stripe. The Fort Worth, Texas product buried the free throw, giving OU the 33-27 edge. The Sooners realized its largest lead of the game after Hill rattled in a putback attempt with 1:42 left in the half.

J. Groves opened the final 20 minutes with a pair of 3-pointers to extend the OU advantage back to five. Texas captured its first lead of the second half with 10:17 remaining. Hill responded with a layup to tie the contest and buried the first of his two 3-pointers, giving the Sooners a brief three-point edge.

Texas regained the lead before J. Groves again tallied a pair of 3-pointers, giving the Sooners a 55-51 advantage. Over the next six minutes, the two programs would trade baskets and found themselves tied after Sherfield buried a step back jumper to put the contest at 62-all with 1:07 left.

J. Groves buried his final 3-pointer as time expired to narrow the final margin to one and conclude the battle with the Longhorns.
UP NEXT
Oklahoma hosts Iowa State on Wednesday, Jan. 4 at 6 p.m.

Boomer sooner!

[Brisket]

* When Tanner Groves is on the floor, the Sooner offense operates a long way from the bucket because of the use of the high screen by Groves. After the pick by Groves the guard can not penetrate, the offense becomes stagnant. At times yesterday the offense reduced to a player with the ball dribbling and four guys standing on their spot hoping to receive a pass.

I noticed this as well. The OU offensive "scheme" looked to be almost exclusively 5-out - 5 guys standing at the 3-point line waiting for the guard at the top of the key to drive & kick. There was very little movement - no motion, no screens, no cutting, nobody posting up. Rarely did they even attempt to try to get out on a fast break. Most of the time it was walk the ball up past mid-court, stand around for another 15-20 seconds, then jack up a panic jumper or 3.

Maybe someone who knows more about basketball than me (which is very little) can explain Moser's system or offensive philosophy.