Oklahoma Basketball: Sooner Men Need to Turn Down the Turnovers to Turn Season Around
By Chip Rouse
With just two Oklahoma basketball games remaining before things get appreciably tougher against some very good Big 12 teams, the Sooners could use a couple of good nonconference wins to pick up momentum heading into the conference grind.
OU will tip off against Memphis in an early a.m. home game at Lloyd Noble Center on Saturday. The Sooners and Tigers, coached this season by former Texas Tech head coach Tubby Smith, have met seven times previously, and OU’s only victory in the series came a year ago in the season opener at Memphis. Oklahoma rode a 30-point performance by Buddy Hield to an 84-78 victory.
Most of the previous games between OU and Memphis have been on a neutral floor or in the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers have only made one appearance in Norman, winning that one by a single bucket, 80-78 in 1997 in the second season of the Big 12 Conference.
With six wins in nine games to begin the 2015-16 season, Oklahoma must win on Saturday and again on Dec. 21 against Auburn (yes, the same school the football Sooners will go up against a couple of weeks after that in the Sugar Bowl) in a game that will be played in Uncasville, Conn., as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Birthday of Basketball doubleheader, to avoid beginning its Big 12 schedule with the worst record in Lon Kruger’s six seasons as the OU head coach.
Kruger has taken the Sooners to four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and four straight 20-win seasons. Even in his first season on the Oklahoma bench, in 2011-12, with a team that finished the year with a 15-16 overall record, the Sooners began the season with a 10-2 record heading into conference play.
“We’ve got to do so much better each possession and value each possession more. We’ve got to execute more quickly and defensively we need to be better.” –Sooner head coach Lon Kruger
Oklahoma has only played two teams from Power Five conferences. The Sooners split those two games: a win over Clemson in the Tire Pros Invitational and a serious thrashing by Wisconsin in a game that got away from Oklahoma over the final 10 minutes.
Turnovers have been a problem for this young Oklahoma team. The Sooners are last in the Big 12 in turnover margin and rank in the very high 200s in that category nationally. They have one less turnover than Kansas, but that is in one less game.
Oklahoma is averaging close to 15 turnovers per game, and most of that is against teams that are far inferior to what they will face in the always rugged Big 12.
“I think every game we have seen some improvements individually…but we’ve (still) got work to do,” said Kruger after last Saturday’s loss to Wichita State.
The Sooners scoring potential is not as potent or predictable to what they had on the floor the past two seasons, which means they are going to have to play solid defense, create opportunities with their defensive play and maximize their scoring opportunities on the offensive end. Turnovers are the biggest enemy of an offense. They not only take away from scoring opportunities but often result in breakaway transition points at the other end for the opponent.
Oklahoma is also near the bottom of the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio, which indicates they aren’t getting good enough ball movement and/or they are squandering too many scoring chances with costly turnovers.
The Sooners get a couple more opportunities over the next week to clean up their ball security and shore up that part of their offensive game execution before the conference season commences, and with it, opponents with greater talent and much more aggressive play on the defensive end.