In case you haven’t noticed, the winning margin in Big 12 games this season is skin thin, and Porter Moser and the Oklahoma basketball team have found themselves caught right in the middle of it.
According to ESPN’s Men’s College Basketball Power Index and several other nationally recognized analytical measures, the Big 12 is the strongest basketball conference this season, and it really isn’t that close. All 10 Big 12 men’s teams are ranked in the top 41 of the latest ESPN BPI, and five are ranked in the top 25.
We are also seeing that competitive balance played out in the final scores of Big 12 games. As of games of Jan. 17, there have been 28 games between Big 12 schools. Fifteen of those games, or more then 50 percent, have been decided by five points or less, and 11 by three points or less.
All five of Oklahoma’s games, a little less than a third of the way through the conference schedule, fall into this category. The Sooners three losses have been by a total of eight points, and their two Big 12 wins have been by five points and one point. Only eight contests have been by a winning margin of 10 or more points.
The Sooners have held second-half leads in all five of their Big 12 games but were only able to close out two of them with a “W.”
"“There’s no scooting around it,” OU head coach Porter Moser told Tulsa World staff writer Edi Lederman and other reporters this week. “They’re all close games. Everything matters.“Strap on in,” the Sooner head coach said. “There are going to be a lot of these in this league.”"
Finishing out games has been a point of emphasis in Sooner practices the past couple of weeks. In OU’s five Big 12 games so far, their opponents have outscored them 69 to 46 in the final five minutes of the game.
“We’ve been struggling to close out games,” said Sooner forward Sam Godwin. “We just kind of get away from the scouting report and the things we go over all week. I don’t know if it’s fatigue or what? We can do better to close out these games.”
On Wednesday night, the Sooners will face another tough conference opponent in rival Oklahoma State. There is a good reason they call this rivalry series Bedlam. Three of the last four Bedlam games have been decided by four points. There is no reason to believe that won’t be the case again this season.
In addition to being outscored by close to five points in the final five minutes of games, the Sooners are also being outrebounded 29-16, which has contributed greatly to their issues in finishing out games.
Coach always emphasizes “DCO,” Godwin said, which stands for defense creating offense. “Something we struggle with is getting offensive rebounds,” he said, which can lead to easy put backs. When you get a defensive rebound, it can lead to quick run outs and transition opportunities on offense at the other end (defense creating offense).
Oklahoma ranks 13th nationally with a field goal percentage of 49.4. In the final five minutes of their conference games thus far, the Sooners are shooting just 36.1 percent. The opponents, however, are shooting close to 60 percent from the field during this critical point in games.
All of these areas are things the Oklahoma men are going to have to get better at if they want to find themselves on the right side of the outcome more times than not the remainder of this Big 12 campaign. There aren’t going to be any easy games, top to bottom, in this league, Not this season.