Oklahoma Basketball: Five Difference Makers in Sooners Opening NCAA Weekend
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma basketball season lives on as the Sooners advanced to the Sweet-16 round of the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year.
At several times in Oklahoma’s two wins in the opening weekend of the 2016 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships it appeared the Sooners were on the verge of breaking the games open against 15th-seeded Cal State-Bakersfield on Friday and again on Sunday facing No. 10-seed Virginia Commonwealth.
On both occasions, however, the Sooners’ opponents mounted comebacks to put themselves right back in the game and put Sooner fans on the edge of their seats. Unlike late in the regular season, however, OU was able to withstand the late charge and close out the games for a Sooner victory.
As a result, Oklahoma advances to the Sweet 16 in as the No. 2 seed in the West Region, the only region in which all four of the top seeds are still in place. The Sooners will face No. 3 Texas A&M on Thursday in Anaheim, with the winner of that game to play either No. 1 Oregon or No. 4 Duke in the West Regional final on Saturday.
There were a number of defining moments in Oklahoma’s first- and second-round victories over the weekend in Oklahoma City. Here is our take on the five difference makers in the Sooners’ NCAA Tournament wins over the Roadrunners of Cal State-Bakersfield and the Rams of VCU:
- Buddy Hield and more Buddy Hield – Both Cal State-Bakersfield and Virginia Commonwealth held down the two-time All-Big 12 Player of the Year and leading scorer for the first 20 minutes, but the second half of both games was an entirely different story. The Sooner senior and All-American was held to just 11 points in the first half against the Roadrunners of Cal State-Bakersfield and only seven first-half points against VCU. He added 16 more in the second half in the win over Call-State-Bakersfield, including 10 of the Sooners final 17 points in the game along with a pair of rebounds and two blocked shots in the closing minutes. And on Sunday against VCU, Hield elevated his game to a completely different stratosphere in the second half. The OU superstar scored 29 of the Sooners 41 second-half points, including 26 of Oklahoma’s final 31 points to will his team to an 85-81 victory and a ticket to the next round in this season’s NCAA Tournament. In total, Hield scored 63 points in the two games, or 37 percent of his team’s points and an average of 31.5 points a game.
- Next man up – With the Big 12’s leading scorer and the nation’s No. 2 scoring leader, Buddy Hield, being held down early in the Sooners first two NCAA Tournament wins over the weekend and having to sit down for a while in the first half on Sunday with two fouls, Oklahoma needed its other starters to step up in their superstar’s absence. Senior guard Isaiah Cousins and junior guard Jordan Woodard quickly stepped in to fill the void. Cousins had 16 points in OU’s win over Cal State-Bakersfield and 15 more against VCU, the third straight game he has scored 15 or more points. More important, he didn’t just settle for three-point attempts and shot close to 50 percent from the field in the two games. Woodard also scored in double digits in both games, with 17 and 15 points, respectively.
- Offensive boards – Oklahoma was able to build an early 14-point lead over the Rams of VCU, largely because of forced errors leading to easy transition baskets but also because of a plethora of offensive rebounds un the early going that gave the Sooners second-chance opportunities. In the two NCAA Tournament wins over the weekend, nearly a third of Oklahoma’s total rebounds were of the offensive variety: 10 of 31 in the opening-round win over CSUB, and 11 of 37 vs. Virginia Commonwealth.
- Making shots – When you shoot well, it usually brings about good outcomes, and OU’s shooting in both contests was above its season average. The Sooners shot 50 percent against Cal State-Bakersfield (28 of 56 overall and 11 of 20 from behind the three-point line, 8 of 11 in the second half) and were 29 of 60 on Sunday against VCU for 48.3 percent.
- Rim protection – The Sooners did not have seven-foot Akolda Manyang on Sunday (he returned home following a death in his family), who was a key force defensively when he was in the game against Cal State-Bakersfield. Manyang had two big-time blocked shots in that game as the Sooners blocked a total of seven shots in the game, two of which came late by Buddy Hield and at critical points in the game. OU’s block totals were down on Sunday, but they still swatted away five balls down low, giving the team 12 for the two games.