So here we are again. But where are we really? For Oklahoma basketball, it’s been a mostly up, but sometimes down season.
With just two games remaining in the regular season and just one more time for Sooner fans to catch the probable National Player of the Year, Buddy Hield, on the court as a collegian at the Lloyd Noble Center, time is running out on Oklahoma to establish its rightful place among the all-time great teams in Sooner basketball history.
On Tuesday night, when the Sooners host No. 19 Baylor, OU fans in attendance, or viewing from near or afar, will have the rare opportunity to witness the only two National Players of the Year – at least that’s how it is looking as of today – in Oklahoma basketball history. Former All-American and now NBA All-Pro Blake Griffin will honored at halftime, as his No. 23 jersey will be retired for the second time (the late Wayman Tisdale originally wore No. 23, but granted Griffin and the Sooners permission in 2007 to unretired the number so Griffin could wear it in honor of his favorite OU star).
So a very special night is in store, for sure. But on a longer-term note, Oklahoma still has much to play for this season, despite dropping four of its last seven games, including a devastating loss to Texas over the weekend, when the Sooners, leading 58-51, failed to score over a seven minute period, while Texas reeled off 22 consecutive points to win the game going away by a 13-point margin.
That was against No. 25 Texas. Now comes No. 19 Baylor, only this time OU is at home, where it has lost only two games at home in 27 games over two seasons and is 21-4 all-time when playing at home against Baylor.
It is the time in the college basketball season when every game counts, and there are no consolation games for the losing team.
Oklahoma remains at No. 6 in the national rankings, and should be in a good position to earn at least a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament if the Sooners can finish out the 2015-16 campaign with back-to-back regular-season wins and then win a game or two. in the Big 12 postseason tournament. Of course, if you are Buddy Hield and the Sooners, you are thinking only in terms of glass half full, mounting a five-game win streak and carting home the Big 12 Tournament trophy as small consolation for what they had hoped to accomplish in the regular season.
But there is much work to do beforehand, and over the last half-dozen games or so, Oklahoma’s vulnerabilities have been fully exposed. If not corrected or vigorously addressed, the flaws that have plagued the Sooners during the month of February will result in the cause of their postseason demise. And that would result in a disappointing conclusion to what started out as season full of high expectations.
Here are three do’s and three don’ts that will ultimately determine how far this Oklahoma basketball team can go and what the remainder of the season will look like before the fat lady sings and the curtain finally comes down on another year of Sooner basketball:
Do’s
- Buddy Hield is the heart and soul of this Sooner team, but no matter how sensational he is, he cannot carry Oklahoma to victory alone. The rest of the team must show up as well. Over the second half of the season, the other Sooner starters have alternated stepping up and complementing Hield in the scoring column, but the attack has not been balanced like it was when OU was winning consistently earlier in the season. You can count on numbers from Hield practically every time out, especially in big games, but the consistency has not been there from Isaiah Cousins, Ryan Spangler and Jordan Woodard. They have all had big nights this season, but not together. And when you aren’t getting much of a contribution from the bench, it is incumbent on the starters to step up and fill the scoring void.
- When Oklahoma rebounds well and wins the battle of the boards, the Sooners win games. OU has outrebounded its opponents 17 times in 28 games this season. The Sooners are 16-1 this season when that happens.
- Oklahoma has played its best this season when it plays strong team defense, holds teams to just one shot per possession, clears the defensive glass and forces turnovers that feed one of the nation’s best transition offenses. When the Sooners use their defense to create good offensive possessions, it generally turns out to be a great day in Sooner Nation. Lon Kruger preaches tough defense, and the veteran Sooners need to get back to playing good defense if they want to advance against good teams in the NCAA Tournament.
Don’ts
The Sooners have thrived most of this season by being the most prolific three-point-shooting team in the country, based on scoring percentage. Throughout the season, as much as 50 percent of Oklahoma’s shots in a game have come from behind the three-point line. When you are hitting 10 or more a game, which OU has done 18 times this season, and making close to 50 percent of your three-ball attempts, all is well and good. But when those shots start to be off the mark with increasing frequency, which has been the case over the Sooners’ last half-dozen outings, things can go south very quickly. Oklahoma cannot rely so much on trading two-point shots for three-pointers in the win-or-go-home postseason world. The Sooners must move the ball around more, find the open shooter and mismatch opportunities, not settle solely for jump shots and create more opportunities to drive to the rim for higher percentage scoring opportunities and where shooting fouls are more prevalent.
Oklahoma will not go far in the postseason if it doesn’t break out of its prolonged shooting slump. The Sooners have shot very poorly as a team in their four February losses, and they didn’t shoot particularly well in the February wins they had over Texas and West Virginia. In too many games this season, poor shooting has plagued Oklahoma at the beginning of games, which puts them behind and on their heels early. Teams that shoot under 40 percent in the postseason are extremely fortunate to survive to see another day, and most do not.
Oklahoma does not play a deep rotation and the reserves who do get time to spell minutes for the starters don’t contribute much, if anything, offensively. In three of OU’s past four games, two of them losses, the Sooner bench has been outscored by the opponents by a combined 90-18 margin. That’s not good enough for a team that wants and expects to go far in the postseason. The Sooners reserves need to fill more than just minutes, they need to produce when they are in the game.
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