Sooner Men's Basketball Hosts South Carolina on Saturday at 3 PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The 13-4 and 0-4 in the SEC, Oklahoma Sooner Men's Basketball Team will host the South Carolina Gamecocks 10-7 and 0-4 in the SEC, on Saturday at 3 PM in Lloyd Noble Center. Oklahoma and South Carolina along with Arkansas 11-6 and 0-4 are the only SEC teams without a win in conference play so far.

The Sooners have found scoring to be difficult in the SEC as their points have dropped from 83+ points/game to 73 points/game. The Sooner rebiunding has dropped from 34.0 boards/game to 29.0 boards/game. The Sooner turnovers have risen from 11.1 in the pre-season to 14.8 in SEC play. The Sooner shooting percentage is roughly the same in the SEC as it was in preseason, suprisingly. but the biggest difference is the points allowed by OU in the SEC, which is 16.5 points more a game in the SEC games. The SEC teams have simply shot better than the non-conference opponents did.

To be successful in the SEC play, the Sooners need to improve just about everything. Against Soiuth Carolina in particular, the Sooners need to defend the three or possible four starters that have started for South Carolina. Here are those players:
G - 6'2" - #1 Wright - 28 min/G - 8.9 Pts and 2.4 Reb/G with high assists and shoots 3's well
F - 6'8" - #30 Murray-Boyles - 30 min/G - 15.6 Pts and 9.1 Reb/G with high blocks and steals
F - 6'10" - #5 Pringle - 25 min/G - 10.2 Pts/G and 6.4 Reb/G with high blocks and assists
G - 5'11" - #6 Thomas - 31 min/G - 12.3 Pts/G and 3.2 Reb/G with high assists nd steals and shoots 3's well. (Thomas has not played in the last two games, however.)

Three other players have started lately as well.
G - 6'7" - #2 Davis - 23 min/G - 9.0 Pts/G and 4.1 Reb/G with high assists and steals (3 starts out of last 4 games)
G - 6'4" - #15 Ugusuk - 22 min/G - 6.6 Pts/G and 1.4 Reb'G with high assists and steals and shoots 3's well (2 starts out of last 4 games)
G - 6'6" - #10 Stute - 25 min/G - 5.4 Pts/G and 2.7 Reb with high assists and steals and shoots 3's well (1 start out of last 4 starts)

The Gamecocks bring 4 other players off the bench. Two are guards at 6'6" and 6'7" and two are forwards who are 6'9" and 7'0". None play more tha 12 min/G and the two 'bigs' play less than 5 min/G and none of the 4 average 4 points a game or 2 rebounds per game.

A strong key in the game between Oklahoma and South Carolina will be if #6 Thomas plays or not in the game. Without Thomas, South Carolina loses a player that plays 31 min/G and scores well and shoots the 3-point shot well. The subs for accout for only about 75% to 50% of what Thomas provides during a game. The Sooners also have to play strong against #30 Murray-Boyles and #5 Pringle up front. that is a must for the Sooners to be able to win the game.

I also believe that the Sooners have to be much more mobile in their offenseive set. I can maybe see one player standing deep in a corner waiting for a pass and an open shot at a 3-pointer, but the other four need to be in-motion during the possesion. Ideally, the "deep-corner-3 player" needs to be mobile as well with the player changing spots during the possesion. While Moore can make that deep corner three, I would rather have him in the middle of the court or near the lane where he can help Godwin/Wague on the offensive boards as well. I do think that South Carolina is too big to try to play 4 guards with Moore on the floor. More movement on offens should open up three's on the perimeter or create backdoor cuts or open shots for the Sooners.

On defense, the Sooners need to work hard to switch back quickly when they can when Elvis or Miles end up guarding the Carolina 'bigs' or to swithc away from Godwin.Wague gurding smaller guards. I also think that Fears needs to play much tougher defense and go to the defensive board hard to help Moore and Godwin/Wague.

As always, the Sooners need to shoot well, the good play and strong defense needs to filter down from the starters to the reserves of Goodine, Taylor Jr and either Forsythe or Northweather if they play. OU needs to pressure ball at the 3-point line to defend againt the 3-point shot.

Doing the same ole' things is not going to get it done for the Sooners in the SEC. Something needs to be "new" for them in the game on Saturday to give them more life, especially in the 1st half.

Good luck to the Sooners on Saturday and I hope they pick up their first win in SEC play.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Saturday's game will be televised by ESPNU with Dave Neal (play-by-play) and Perry Clark (analyst) announcing. It 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 (play-by-play) and Kevin Henry (analyst) on the call.

The Sooners are 8-2 at home while South Carolina is 1-3 in true road games.

Here is the pre-game article about the Oklahoma vs South Carolina Men's BB game on Saturday written by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2025/1/17 ... h-carolina

Good luck to the Sooners on Saturday.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Well the headline should read, "The Sooner Men win their first SEC Men's Basketball Game!", but that might a bit too celebratory since it was in their 5th conference game. But it is still something to celebrate. The first one of just about anything, is always the hardest. Now, OU is past all that. Why were the Oklahoma Sooners able to defeat the previously 0-4 South Carolina Gamscocks 82-62 yesterday? They simply played a better brand of basketball. They shot well, the handled the ball well and they won the rebounding. When a team does those three thiings well, they will usually win the game.

Now the questions becomes this. Did OU play better because SC played poorly or because SC is a poor team? -OR- Did OU play better simply because they played better? Well, at 0-5 now, the Gamecocks is not a very good SEC team, but I want to think it is more about OU playing better and the Sooners not letting South Carolina play over thier heads. It just sounds so much better.

OU shot 56% from the field including a 47.1% from beyond the 3-point line on 8 of 17 shots and 60.6% on 2-point shooting. That type of shooting for the game can cure many ills. Oklahoma also shot the same number of free throws in the game but made 7 more that SC as the Sooners made 18 of 21 from the charity stripe for 85.7% which is very good.

OU handled the ball well as they only had 12 tunrovers. More importantly, they only had 1 in the second half of the game. They combind that with 19 assists (means they were passing the ball well instead of playing 1-on-1 ball) and dded 8 steals. 27 to 12 equals a Ratio of almost 2.5-to-1. SC only had 16 tunrovers with 13 assists and 8 steals for almost a 1.5% Ratio. Oklahoma also outscored SC 19 to 3 on points off of turnovers. That is a big advantage.

OU outrebounded SC 33 to 27 in the game. Oklahoma outscored SC in the paint 34 to 20 but SC did outscore OU on 2nd chance points, 10-6. But OU did have a presence and did limit SC inside.

The floor looked more open on OU's offensive end in the game. The high-post rub was not as prominent yesterday. It looked like the guards were more able to get to the paint as well. Moore played a very nice game by being able to get to the foul line during the game. Moore scored 22, Fears scored 16 on only 22 shots as they also were 16 of 17 from the charity stripe. Elvis added 12 on great shooting including 4 of 6 from 3-point land. Everyone else was 13 of 21 shooting. That is very strong. Fears, surprisingly, led the Sooners in rebounds with 9. That is progress by Fears and I think he played better on defense yesterday too. Moore added 8 boards.

Oklahoma played well enough to win the first half 34 to 30 but in the second half OU put the game away in a 4+ minute run from just under 8 minutes left to play with a 15-straight-point run against SC. OU moved from a 59-54 lead to a 74-54 lead in that stretch. In the middle of that, Murray-Boyles for SC also got his 4th and 5th fouls as he was guarding Moore and that basically ended the game as SC had less firepower on offense without him.

We all need to say and think, "Good Job OU Men!" Now, the job ahead is a bit easier. At 1-4 and with 13 more SEC ganes left, the Sooners play 7 currently ranked Top 25 Teams (#1 at Auburn, #5 at Florida, #6 Tennessee in LNC, #8 Kentucky in LNC, #11 at Texas A&M, #15 Mississippi State in LNC and #21 Ole Miss in LNC). I would be surprised inf they win any of the road games in that list. But maybe they can steal one against one of them in the LNC (Ole Miss maybe). that then have 6 games against 5 teams. Missouri home and road, at Arkansas and at Texas along with Vanderbilt and LSU at LNC. Can the Sooners win all 6 of those games? Can they win 5 of them? We will see. But these 6 games are winable if the Sooners play well.

Here is the post-winning game articel written by the OU Athletics Communications group:

https://soonersports.com/news/2025/1/18 ... lina-82-62

Arkansas is up next next Saturday night in Fayetteville. Arkansas is now 0-5 after their loss to Missouri in Columbia yesterday. One game at a time, the Sooners can pickup some valuable wins. I saw yesterday during the telecast that OU was shown as a #10 seed in the NCAA Tourney. The win over South Carolina should keep that position solid, at least, for the Sooners.

If you had no idea of how the wins happened and were just told that the Sooners are now 14-4, we all would have said...."yeah, that works!" But the 13-0 start before an 0-4 start in the SEC before their first win does put a damper on the "yeah". But still -- OU is 14-4.

Boomer Sooner!