OU basketball: Trae Young’s stellar stats will never get old
By Chip Rouse
No question that the arrival of super freshman Trae Young has sparked a rejuvenation of Oklahoma basketball this season.
In just 21 games, the Sooner point guard has not only cemented his claim to the best newcomer to the college game this season but, even better than that, arguably the best player overall this college basketball season.
Young is the leading scorer on the nation’s highest scoring team. The Sooners average 90.7 points a game, and OU’s freshman superman delivers a nation-best 30.3 of that total per contest.
As the Sooner Nation is keenly aware, his phenomenal scoring ability isn’t the only thing that makes Young so special. He keeps his head up at all times on offense and is a premier distributor of the basketball. When the defense collapses on Young, which is happening more and more as teams construct defensive schemes to slow or disrupt the young Sooner star, he will kill you by delivering a precision pass to an open teammate.
Young is on pace to become the first Division I player to lead the country in both scoring average and assists per game since the NCAA began recording assists in 1983-84. His 30.3 scoring average is 10 points better than the closest Big 12 challenger. It is also well above the freshman record at Oklahoma as well as the career record. The late, great Wayman Tisdale holds both records, averaging 24.5 points as a freshman in 1983-84 and 27.0 for his Sooner career.
Young has scored 636 points in 21 games this season and is 175 away from setting a new Oklahoma freshman mark for scoring, which would exceed Tisdale, who produced 810 point his freshman year. The Sooner magic man has scored 30 or more points nine times this season and has gone over the 40-point level on four different occasions, including three times in the past six games.
The OU point guard already owns the Sooner freshman record for three-point shots and made three-pointers (90 for 220), assists (200) and made free throws (170 of 204), and with eight more free-throw attempts he will become the career freshman leader in that category.
When Young records a double-double (double digits in both points and assist), the Sooners are a perfect 10-0 this season.
The former McDonald’s All-American is the talk of college basketball this season. Trae Young is truly one of a kind, and Sooner fans need to relish every minute they get to cheer him on wearing an Oklahoma jersey. It will go by very fast.