Oklahoma Basketball: Overcoming Adversity Is Enemy of Good for Young Sooners
By Chip Rouse
It’s been a frustrating season so far for Oklahoma basketball fans.
OK, maybe not on both ends of the Oklahoma basketball program. The OU men, however, have slipped to 8-10 overall and 2-5 in Big 12 action after failing to hold on to leads in both halves and in overtime against Iowa State on Saturday.
Head coach Lon Kruger, who is just three wins away from reaching the 600-win level in his coaching career, is showing extreme patience with his young Sooner squad. The teacher in him, along with his extraordinary history of taking five different schools, including the Sooners, to the NCAA Tournament, recognizes that in due time this team will progress and prosper much like his successful OU teams of the past couple of seasons.
Right now, more than halfway through the 2016-17 college basketball season, the Sooners biggest issue seems to be consistency on both ends of the floor and dealing with adversity, which is highly typical of a youthful, unseasoned team that lost three key starters from last season, including the national player of the year in Buddy Hield.
The Sooners let a 19-point lead completely evaporate in the final eight minutes of the opening half against Iowa State on Saturday and also gave up seven and six-point leads in the second half and in the first overtime. This has been happening to Oklahoma on multiple occasions this season, to the point that it has become somewhat endemic.
Only in their stunning upset win last Wednesday over then-No. 7-ranked West Virginia did the Sooners show the resiliency and confidence in each other to whether the storm and fight back from 15 points down to pull out a come-from-behind victory and do what other teams have been doing to them the majority of this season.
“We’ve got to be stronger, and we’ve got to move better,” Kruger said after Saturday’s home loss to Iowa State. “We got down in the paint and turned it over a few times there (more than a few, in actuality) that you can’t afford to do.
“We had 25 turnovers and were careless with the ball,” he added. “We did that too frequently. That’s a huge key in the ball game.”
Freshman guard Kameron McGusty was asked after the Iowa State game about the trouble the Sooners have been experiencing maintaining offensive composure when things start going south. “It’s very tough because I feel like people start doing a little more than what they need to do,” he said. “That’s when the turnovers come in.”
The Sooners won’t have much turnaround time to get their heads on straight and the frustration of the Iowa State loss behind them, with a big rivalry battle at Texas coming up in a little over 24 hours. Oklahoma will be playing its third game in five days when it takes to the hardwood against Texas on Monday night.
“It’s just like being in an AAU game,” said another of the first-year Sooners, Kristian Doolittle, about having to play three games in less than a week. “It was worse than that; you play three games in a day (in AAU). I’m 19, so I’m not to old yet.”
In this case, having a young team might be a plus instead of a minus.