Sooner WBB at K-State for Wednesday 6 PM Game w Two 3-0 teams !

[OUBeliever56A]

If you look at a Kansas map this morning the roads in northern Manhattan are mostly closed. Getting to Manhattan anytime today may not happen if the Sooners are busing to Manhattan for Wednesday night's game @ 6 PM. The roads should gradually clear up due to the day's warming and traffic starting to move on the roads, but even tomorrow it may take longer than the normal 5 hours trip. The weather outlook for Wednesday is a high of 37 degrees with some chance of sleet or rain. The first goal for Jenny Baranczyk and the Sooner athletics team is to get the Sooners to Manhattan safely and in a timely way. I trust that will occur for the Sooners Women's Basketball team.

As for the game with Oklahoma playing in Manhattan against Kansas State, both teams are 3-0 in Big 12 conference play. K-State is 15-1 and Oklahoma is 9-5. As for comparative games, Oklahoma and Kansas State has played two common opponents. those two teams are North Carolina and Southern. K-State defeated both by 7 and 32 points respectively. OU lost to both by 11 and 9 points respectively. Kansas State's best win is against Iowa, the #3 ranked team in the country, but K-State's lone loss is to Iowa as well. Both games were 7 point games. Oklahoma's best win is maybe the game they won over Ole Miss or Virginia on the road. Neither of those teams are ranked.

In the Big 12, both Kansas and Oklahoma have defeated three teams that are 0-9 combined in the conference. Both teams have defeated UCF and Cincinnati. K=state won both games on the road, Ou won both games at home. OU defeated a better BYU team on the road than K-State did as they defeated Houston at home.

So what does that mean for the Sooners as they try to go on the snow swept road to play Kansas State. It means it will be a tough game for the Sooners. Here is why.

K-State starters are 6'6 Lee, 6'1" Sundell, 6'0" Gregory, 6'1" J Glenn and 5'11" B Glenn. The Wildcats top reserves are a 5'8" guard, a 6'3" forward and a 5'6" guard. They have three forwards at 6'2" to 6'4" that play spot minutes. They are a big, I think physical team. They allow only 50.9 pts a game. they score 77.2 points a game for a 26.3-point differential. They out rebound their opponents by almost 11 rebounds a game and allow less than 10 offensive rebounds a game. Kansas State shoots well from the field at 48.5% . They shoot 57.5% from inside the arc and 31.6% from beyond the arc. They shoot 69.3% from the charity stripe and shoot 15 foul shots a game. They limit their turnovers to 13.6 a game and 29 assists/steals per game. About the only chink in that armor is the low free throw percentage. No wonder that are rated in the top 12 teams in the country and have a NET Ranking of #9.

Lee leads the team inside with 19.8 points a game and 8.2 rebounds a game. Sundell and Gregory score 10.1 and 9.1 points a game. Five other Wildcats pull down 4 rebounds a game. Sundell, Gregory and Sides (a reserve guard) all have 63 or more assists. Lee has 40 blocks inside. J Glenn has 33 steals with 5 others that have 11 or more steals.

Oklahoma is now averaging these numbers. The Sooners score 79.1 points a game while allowing 68.4 for a 10.7-point differential. Oklahoma shoots 42.4% from the field, with a 50.7% rate from inside the arc and a 29.1% from outside the arc. So the shooting edge goes to K-State. But OU does put up about 7 more shots a game than K-State. OU does pull down 46.1 renounds a game and holds a 6.2 advantage over their opponents. OU lives on the offensive boards with 15.5 per game. The rebounding may be a big key in the game. If OU can rebound with the bigger, likely more physical Wildcats, the Sooners have a chance. While the turnovers have been lower of late, the Sooners are now at 18.6 a game. They pick up 30 assists/steals a game. Oklahoma shoots almost 19 free shots a game and they shoot about about the same as K-State at 69.8%.

The Sooner starters, Vann, Williams, Verhulst, Keys and Tot will be the smaller team trying to outrun and outshoot the Wildcats while encircling Lee inside. the Sooner subs, taller and maybe a bit more physical will try to hold their own when they are on the court. I would like to see Johnson get a shot at handling Lee inside with some help from Culliton also. I wonder if OU will go with a taller starting five with one of Tot, Keys or Williams not starting. I think Williams guarding Gregory would be a fierce battle with neither one giving an inch. they could both foul out in the first half if they match up.

I really do not know what to expect in the game. I think OU has to play very well for 40 minutes to win. I think K-state can win by not playing their best game, especially if OU does not have an answer to slow down Lee. I would call it a major victory if OU can hold Lee to under 25 points in the game. If the Sooners can do that and hold Sundell and Gregory to less than 20 points combined, OU can win the game. At least I think they can. Oklahoma would still have to limit turnovers and rebound at a near even pace with the Wildcats and win the rebounding battle on defense.

The game is at 6 PM and will be on ESPN+.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the game against K-State.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/9/ ... -manhattan

Good luck to the Sooners in Manhattan.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

I mentioned above that if OU could hold Lee to 25 points, and hold Sundell and Gregory to 20 total points, that OU could win. Well, the Sooners checked the box on Lee, but she did score 19 on only 12 shots. But Sundell and Gregory scored 29 points. So the three of them scored 48 when I hoped that they would score 45 total. Walker scoring 13 and J Glenn scoring 24 points, 10 more than they average hurt the Sooners also. In the end the Sooners lost 74-57 in a game largely won due to the 2Q (22-10) and K-State put the game away in the 4Q (27-21).

Oklahoma did win the rebounding battle 49 to 42 with 13 offensive rebounds. The Sooners only had 13 turnovers while K-State had 8, so while it seemed that OU had more than 13, they did take care of the ball somewhat. So why did the Sooners lose by 17? Oklahoma shot 27.1% from the field, with 28.5% from inside the arc, and 25% from outside the arc. K-State shot 43% from the field, 53.6% from inside the arc, and 26.9% from outside the arc. K-State just shot better, especially close to the basket. K-State scored 20 more points inside the arc with 18 of those from inside the paint.

The Sooners also did not get great play from some players that they need to help them. Joens, Verhulst and Keys were 3 for 24 combined as a trio. They scored 13 points. They average 30.6 a game. The trio of Williams, Vann and Tot were 14 of 35 for 40%, and scored 39, ten points more than they average. But their scoring was in streaks. Tot scored 11 of her 13 in the 1st half. Williams scored 10 in the 4Q and Vann scored 12 in the 2nd half. IWIK (I wish I knew) why Williams suddenly finds a way to score in the 4Q suddenly in games. The Sooner bench, a helpful 6 players in most games scored 9 points in the game. They score 30.9 on average.

Kansas State did play well. They also play pretty good defense, especially inside with Lee picking up blocks.

The Sooners also suffered a long stretch of not scoring in the first half. OU was leading 15-11 with about a minute to play. Three minutes and fifteen seconds later, K-State led 22-17. By the time the 2Q ended the score was 37-25 with OU scoring 10 points in the last 11 minutes of the 1st half while K-State scored 26. I think OU had 5 turnovers in that time span. tot had 6 of those 10 points for Oklahoma with everyone else scoring but 4. Oklahoma was 5 for 10 from outside the arc in the 1st half but 2 of 18 in the 2nd half. OU was 7 of 34 in the two middle quarters from the field scoring 21 points in 20 minutes. I would say that K-State played really well in the 2Q and the 4Q with 50% shooting.

I did think there was a potential five point swing in the game on a play inside the K-State lane. Lee caught a pass and moved to her left with her left elbow leading the way into Vann's upper check/neck/chin area. Vann took the blow as the ball went into the bucket and the foul called on Lee. Even with a review of the play in slow motion, the referees thought they called it correctly. Pretty inept, I would say on their part. Lee made the free throw. The bucket should have been waived and OU should have had 2 free throws on the other end. That is possibly a five point play and Lee is in more foul trouble as she ended the game with 4 fouls. I know the five points don't make a real difference, but the officials have to be better. Not one of the three of them saw the leading elbow? Not one. It was strange that despite giving up 20 to 11 fouls, that OU still scored 3 more points from the free throw line. BTW, when the twin towers were in the game, did anyone understand Landry guarding Lee instead of Johnson? I was a bit lost on that choice.

The Sooners are now 3-1 in the Big 12. They are home on Saturday ( I think it will be very cold. ) to play Texas Tech before going to Houston next Wednesday. Both Tech and Houston are 1-3 in the Big 12. The Sooners should be even odds to win the next two games if they play well. At 5-1, they are in the hunt. before they have 3 potentially tough games against Texas on the road, Kansas (1-3 for some reason) and K-State at home.

One never knows, but the Sooners need to figure out a way to shoot a better percentage from the field. It could be better shooting strategy, It could be by working for shots inside the arc, it could be by some players simply not shooting from more than 12 feet most of the time. Tot, Williams and Verhulst need to find some consistency, Keys needs to find her game as of late. Joens need to force a few less threes and take the shot when she is open. The rest of the bench needs to play better also.

Elsewhere in the Big 12 last night:

Kansas upset Baylor in Lawrence, 87 to 64. This is a surprise to me, especially by 23 points. Kansas is now 1-3, Baylor is 3-1.
Iowa State won over West Virginia at home 74-64. I-State is now 4-0 While WV is 2-2.
Texas won 73-60 over TCU. Texas is 3-1 and Tech is 1-3.
Oklahoma State defeated Texas Tech 71-58. OSU is 3-1 and Tech is 2-2.
Cincinnati defeated UCF by one at home on a missed shot, rebound and a made shot with 1 second left by Ariel Jackson of Cincy, 64-63. Cincy is 1-3, UCF is 0-4.
Houston held serve to defeat BYU in Houston 79-69. Houston is 1-3 and BYU is 0-4.
And OU is now 3-1 with K-State is now 4-0.

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the loss to Kansas State last night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/10 ... nsas-state

Boomer Sooner!

[TN Sooner]

I feel like our guys fought hard and mostly “hung around”, but then got really ugly at the end.
We were 7-28 from 3 (25%), which is not good, but not completely awful. We were 12-42 from 2. 12 2-point field goals. 28.5% from 2 - you aren’t going to win many games under 30%.

I get frustrated watching these guys - we play “dumb” sometimes (a lot lately). Out of rhythm 3’s. Bunnies around the basket that don’t even draw iron. Shortest player on the floor driving repeatedly on the best shot blocker in the country and having it predictably rejected each time. Drives into impossible places and then efforts at impossible passes that wind up turnovers.

Finally, I don’t know the circumstances or everything that led to Gabby Gregory leaving, but it just angers me to see a kid that grew up a lifelong Sooner fan absolutely destroying us. This kid was an OU ball girl and we couldn’t figure out a way to keep her around? I know she had that weird medical issue that we couldn’t seem to get sorted and then the coaching change. It still makes me mad - she should be a SOONER! Rant over.

[OUBeliever56A]

Gregory would help this team a great deal.

[OUBeliever56A]

At 9-6, with 14 games left, I think the Sooners can get to 15 wins. Can they get to 18? I am not sure.