It’s rivalry week for Oklahoma basketball. The Sooners defeated in-state rival Oklahoma State on Wednesday. Now its off to Austin, Texas, for round two this season of its Red River rivalry with hated Texas.
Oklahoma has won 17 straight from its two chief rivals, Oklahoma State and Texas: twelve straight from OSU to go along with its last five games against Texas, including the last two played in Austin.
Buddy Hield’s scoring average has gone down a little in recent games, but he still leads the Big 12 and is second nationally with an average of 25.1. Eight times this season, he has scored 30 or more points, and 14 times his scoring his scoring totals have been in the 20s. Hield’s eight 30-point games is one short of everyone else in the Big 12 combined.
This season Hield became the all-time three-point leader at Oklahoma. He has 313 career treys currently (the old record was set by Terry Evans, 259, from 1990-93). Hield also now owns the mark for most three-pointers in a season (111 through 27 games). He is firing away at a 48-percent proficiency this season when he launches the three-ball, second-best in the nation.
The fourth-ranked Sooners won their last two games, over Wes Virginia and Oklahoma State, with outstanding rebounding efforts. OU leads the Big 12 in rebounding, pulling down an average of 40 boards per game. Meanwhile Texas ranks last in the conference, averaging 35 rebounds per game.
Longhorn junior guard Isaiah Taylor leads Texas in scoring averaging over 15 points a game. With big man Cameron Ridley out with an injury, Texas has had to rely on a smaller lineup than most Big 12 teams and heavy production from a young group of players. The Longhorns have three freshmen – Robert Davis, Tevin Mack and Kerwin Roach – who have combined for 23 double-digit scoring performances this season.
Texas’ Davis has scored in double figures in six games this season, and he is a deadly three-point artist when given a good look.
And Taylor has been red hot in his last three games. He has averaged over 17 points a game in the last three games and has shot above 50 percent in the past two.
Texas is 18-12 coming into the game Saturday with Oklahoma and 9-6, one game back of the Sooners, in the Big 12 standings. The Longhorns are ranked 25th this week in both major polls and have won 9 of their last 14 outings, including three wins over top-20 teams (North Carolina, Iowa State and West Virginia).
In the first game between these two longtime rivals this season, Oklahoma barely escaped with a three-point victory on Buddy Hield’s three-point dagger with just a couple of seconds left in regulation.
Three things you should know about this game:
- Buddy Hield and Isaiah Cousins were freshman in 2012-13, when Oklahoma and Texas split their two-game series in the regular season. Since then, the combination of Hield, Cousins, Jordan Woodard and Ryan Spangler have started all five games these two teams have played in the last three seasons. The Sooners have won all five, which means that Woodard and Spangler have never lost to the Longhorns, and Hield and Cousins are 4-1 vs. the Longhorns.
- Texas is 19-18 against Oklahoma in games played in Austin. The Longhorns have an all-time winning percentage of .875 in games played at UT’s Frank Erwin Center. The Sooners have won five consecutive games in the Red River Rivalry series, but before that, Texas had prevailed in seven of the previous eight.
- Oklahoma has outrebounded its opponent is 17 of 27 games this season and ranks 11th nationally in defensive rebounds, led by Ryan Spangler’s Big 12-best 7.3 defensive boards per game. The Sooners are 16-1 this season when they win the battle of the boards. In the first game between OU and Texas earlier this month, the Longhorns had a two-rebound edge on the boards 36-34).
My pick: Oklahoma 82, Texas 75 – The left side of my brain tells me that Oklahoma is going to have to bring its “A” game if it is going to win this game on the road against a rapidly improving Texas team that is playing very good basketball right now. My right-side brain, however, is more creative and imaginative and a believer that OU is a better team with more experience and with a No. 1 seed out there that is well within the Sooners’ grasp if they play up to their capability. I hope my right brain has it right.http://nyloncalculus.com/shot-charts-internal.