Oklahoma Men's BB at K-State Tonight @ 7 PM in Key Big 12 Game

[OUBeliever56A]

The #23/#24 Sooner Basketball Team travels to "little Manhattan" to play the Kansas State Wildcats in a 7 PM game on Tuesday night that can be seen on ESPN+. the Sooners are 3-4 in the Big 12 Conference with Kansas holding a 4-3 record in conference. The Sooners have currently lost two games in a row to Texas and Texas Tech with both games being at home. OU needs to desperately get back on the winning track and they need to do that on the road as they did against Cincinnati earlier in conference play.

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 Mark Neely (PxP) and King McClure (analyst) on the call.

Here is the staff writers article about the key matchup for the Sooners tonight.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/29 ... sday-clash

Kansas State is a solid basketball team. When I looked at their stats I was surprised to see that in Big 12 play, their shooting % have actually gotten better than their overall stats for the season. I would bet that is not true for too many teams. The Sooners are not able to say that.

Here is the Wildcats lineup:
G 5'11" - Perry at 14.0 Points and 2,9 Rebounds in 35 minutes a game - 3-Point threat
G 6'3" - Carter at 15.9 Points and 4.7 Rebounds in 35 minutes a game - 3-Point threat
F 6'7" - Kaluma at 15.0 Points and 7.3 Rebounds in 35 minutes a game - 3-Point threat
F 6'9" - N'Guessan at 7.3 Points and 7.4 Rebounds in 28 minutes a game
C 6'11" - McNair Jr at 7.5 Points and 5.3 Rebounds in 22 minutes a game
Subs
G 6'1" - Ames - 5.1 and 1.0 - 20 minutes
G 6'4" - Finister - 2.8 and 2.3 - 14 minutes
F/C 6'10" - Colbert - 2.9 and 1.9 - 10 minutes
F 6'7" - Rich - 3.7 and 2.6 - 10 minutes
G 6'3" - Jones - 2.9 and 0.9 - 9 minutes

As you can see, the K-State trio of Carter, Kaluma and Perry dominate their playing minutes and their scoring with roles players around them. Thy shoot the ball well, they renound the ball pretty well also. But they turn the ball over a bit with 15.0 per game. Kansas State is 1-3 on the road while being 3-0 at home with wins over UCF, Baylor (OT) and OSU at home.

It looks like to me that when the Wildcats go to the bench they go more to a 3-guard lineup rather than the 2-2-1 that they start. The Sooners should be able to match up with the Wildcats but Oklahoma will have to concentrate on slowing the trio of scorers presented by K-State. Those three players are also threats from 3-point land as they have made 127 three's on the season. Off the bench, Jones can make a 'three' also.

In the Big 12, any team has to play well in the road to win. Your 'A-Game' is required to win. That means for the Sooners that they have to shoot the ball well and better than their last few games. The Sooners probably would like to run a bit for shoots before the K-State defense gets set. On defense the Sooners have to do a better job getting over screens outside, Rebound the ball cleanly and get the ball out to the break when they can. To me the play of Moore, Soares and Oweh are becoming more important. The better they play, the better the team result seems to be. Uzan is playing well but he may need to look for his shot more when he gets inside the foul line. McCollum needs to find his touch also from outside. Godwin and Hugley IV need to stay on the court and provide positive minutes for the Sooners inside and on the boards. Darthard needs to find his groove that he had earlier in the season. If Northweather gets in the game, his ability to stretch the defense and open up the inside might help the offense.

The game against K-State is one of the 7 key games left for OU in conference. The Sooners needs to pick up 3, maybe 4 wins out of those 7 games. Hopefully the Sooners pick up a win in their first one tonight. Good luck to the Sooners.

Boomer Sooner!

[EMan]

Didn't shoot all that well from the field, and were absolutely horrible from the line again, yet somehow led wire-to-wire and got the road win, 73-53. K St. looked really bad. Sooner D had a little to do with that, but geez, the Cats were frigid from the field. 4-28 from behind the arc. Pew! If you had told me Oweh would go 2-12 from the field, and the Sooners would miss 15 free throws, I'd have said there was no way they'd win. Yet won going away! Moore played really well again. He's the best player on the team right now. Huge road win after two straight home losses. They have a chance to get the season back on track now.

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners Men's Basketball Team traveled to 'little manhattan' on Tuesday and picked up a valuable win on the road with a 20 point win, 73-53. the victory was thorough as the Sooners led for the entire 40 minutes of the game. The Sooner lead was 10 or more points for about 31 minutes of the game except for a brief span of time around the 8 minute mark in the 2nd half when K-State got the game down to a 7-point difference. The Sooners closed well and secured the 20 point win, on the road.

To me the game was a cup half full, and a cup half empty scenario. While playing well enough to win, the Sooners certainly left quite a few things on the table that should have been very easy to pick up.

The half-empty list:

• Uzan, Oweh, Darthard and Hugley IV - These four were 2 for 20 from the field, 0 for 7 from 3-point and 4 for 8 from the free throw line. They scored 8 points. They did have 9 assists and 5 steals against just 3 turnovers though. Hugley IV was in foul trouble and only played 9 minutes before fouling out also. I think it will be a rare win for the Sooners if these four play this way in any other games.

• The free throw shooting - It has become a bit of a trend. The Sooners were 24 for 39 from the line for 61.5%. That follows a poor shooting game from the line against Texas Tech last Saturday also. I have not dribbled or shot a free shot since probably 2015. If you give me 5 warm-up shots before starting, I would bet I could make 24 out of 39 free throws. I am 67. This has to improve for the Sooners.

• The Sooners were also only 3 of 14 (21.4%) from three-point territory. At least they did not settle for three's, they took the ball to the basket instead.

The half-full list:

• Nine (9) turnovers for the Sooners. The Sooners posted a 2-to-1 ratio with 12 assists and 8 steals for 20 good to 9 bad stats.

• Rebounds - Oklahoma had 39 with 12 offensive boards while K-State had 35 with 10 offensive boards.

• Jalon Moore - Scored 23 points with 9 rebounds on good shooting from the floor. Moore is becoming a major cog in the Sooner offense.

• Javian McCollum - Scored 21 points with the help of 9 of 10 free throws on 13 shots.

• Sam Godwin - He was able to stay on the floor for 22 minutes and score 11 points with 7 rebounds. If he was better than 3 for 9 from the charity strip, he could have scored 15.

• Rivaldo Soares - He scored 10 points with 5 rebounds on 4 shots from the field and 3 of 4 free throws.

• Moore and Soares played the 4 and 5 positions for about 4 to 5 minutes in the second half when Hugley IV fouled out and Godwin had four fouls.

• Overall Team Defense - Especially in the first half. The Sooners did not allow the Wildcats to score to start the game for over 8 minutes. The Sooners did have some trouble slowing down the smallest player on the floor (Perry) in the second half as he scored 18 second half points. But Carter and Kaluma only scored 9 points instead of their average of 31 point a game.

The game was a horrible game to watch in the second half. There were 29 fouls called in 20 minutes. I think both teams were in the bonus with 2 shots before the halfway point in the second half. almost every other trip down the floor there was a foul called.

Here is the Sooner staff wrtiers article about the rod win for Oklahoma.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/30 ... -manhattan

The Sooners evened their record at 4-4 in the conference and 16-5 overall to be 11 games above .500. On Saturday, the Sooners play in Orlando against UCF in a tough travel week for them. Saturday's game is at 3 PM on ESPN+.

Boomer Sooner!

In other Big 12 play this week;

• Houston defeated Texas in Austin in an overtime game 76-72. Houston has won five straight conference games.

• TCU defeated Texas Tech in Ft. Worth 85-78. TCU led throughout the game.

• Kansas defeted OSU in Lawrence by 29, 83-54.

On Wednesday night, Cincy plays at WV and Baylor plays at UCF. The Baylor/UCF game is key as the loser digs their hole a bit deeper in the conference.