Jump to content

Oklahoma Postgame


tigerbrotha12

Recommended Posts





That was a big boy win tonight. Held off a big run. Hard to do as young as we are. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heck yea.  Awesome win.  That makes up for one of the wins against us in softball.  Let's win Jan 2nd to make up the football beatdown and beat them again on the softball diamond in the early tourney for the other loss to them.  It's there for the taking. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gutsy win tonight. It's not often you win a game where your opponent gets off 22 more shots than you do. Great game by Harper. He seemed to have a big shot up his sleeve whenever we needed one. And that 11-12 FT shooting from him should do wonders for his confidence going forward. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spencer and Brown not playing probably equaled their MVP not playing. It's a resume building win that will overcome the BC loss and help AU get in the NIT conversation again. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, AuburnArch13 said:

Gutsy win tonight. It's not often you win a game where your opponent gets off 22 more shots than you do. Great game by Harper. He seemed to have a big shot up his sleeve whenever we needed one. And that 11-12 FT shooting from him should do wonders for his confidence going forward. 

Yep. Defense forced a lot of bad shots. Unfortunately OK rebounded a whole bunch of those missed shots. We rebounded a little better for most of the game, but still need some improvement there. Biggest plus I saw tonight was Wiley on the constant move setting picks up top and still getting down low to post up. He's got a ways to go, but it's obvious what Bruce sees in him enough to start him tonight. He could literally be a game changer for this offense. Plays pretty decent defense too for HS senior :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Held off the big run, that was big. Oklahoma pushed a couple of times late but Harper, Dunans, Purifoy and Heron all showed up late. 

It seemed (by our style of play and comments from CBP at the half) that our game plan was to slow everything down. Coach Pearl knew Oklahoma would be able to run with us but apparently had more faith in our half court teams than he did theirs, for good reason. While I would have still liked to see us press a little more frequently, i imagine just getting this freshman, transfer and suspension featuring a 17 year old center filled team to slow down was already hard enough to begin with.

These past couple of games have also featured almost a full college games worth of minutes for Wiley. While it hasn't all been pretty, we weren't expecting it to be. And unless this kid is already better than Dwight Howard in his first NBA season, it's a good thing that he's enduring some growing pains. It gives the coaches a good sample of what he does and doesn't need help on right away. 

Harper is still impressing me, he has consistently played much more and better than I had expected he would before he got to campus. He's quickly becoming my favorite player on this team. Dunans as well, his composure and focus is always right where it needs to be. Comes up with good plays all through out the game. Very efficient play per minute from him tonight.

Having Spencer back in the rotation should also help Wiley. Not only will it take pressure off him but give him another peer who is playing against the same players as Wiley that will be able to help him grow with little tips/pointers he notices in game.

WAY too many turnovers. Heron's travels and double dribbles were very confusing (just the fact he was making such a frequent basic mistake, uncharacteristic). Same went for DP's small shot selection, I know I'm not alone when I say I'd like more driving from him. His play is great, offensively, but I feel he has more ability to create for himself when the shot isn't there compared to what he's shown. Luckily with such a young group, these are all things we can expect to see improved on soon. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jared52 said:

Spencer and Brown not playing probably equaled their MVP not playing. It's a resume building win that will overcome the BC loss and help AU get in the NIT conversation again. 

I think I know what you mean by making sure you bring up the NIT conversation but I urge you to think of this: AU now has two wins that the tournament will probably term as "good wins" come selection time. (Maybe 3 considering if any of these mid-majors wins their conference). It might be time to start looking for bigger and better than just the NIT. I certainly understand the road that lies ahead is quite difficult, but this team seems as if it will be battle tested and will have played against many different styles of ball come SEC play. It just seems to me like an NCAA birth is quite possible and an NIT spot is almost there for the taking now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Wiley ends up contributing big in SEC play, that BC loss won't look quite as bad.  If we're on the bubble and that's a game that's examined, we lost on a last second tip in unfortunately to a bad team. 

Purdue is definitely the best team we could have lost to this far (as far as a "good" loss goes). Caleb Swannigan (of Purdue) just recorded 32 points and 20 rebounds to complete his second straight 20-20 game and third of the year. (There have only been 5 this year total). 

Beating uconn would be huge. Even though they are one of the bigger dissapintmenrs in college basketball this year, an early season win at uconn will look great on this young team's record. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Charhair said:

If Wiley ends up contributing big in SEC play, that BC loss won't look quite as bad.  If we're on the bubble and that's a game that's examined, we lost on a last second tip in unfortunately to a bad team. 

Purdue is definitely the best team we could have lost to this far (as far as a "good" loss goes). Caleb Swannigan (of Purdue) just recorded 32 points and 20 rebounds to complete his second straight 20-20 game and third of the year. (There have only been 5 this year total). 

Beating uconn would be huge. Even though they are one of the bigger dissapintmenrs in college basketball this year, an early season win at uconn will look great on this young team's record. 

Just consider this. We won a total of 11 games last year. If we beat Uconn, we have ten wins before SEC play starts.  We will have 19 games remaining after that. If we can win just 9 of those and get 1 win in the SEC tourney, we are at 20 wins and a solid bubble team even if the SEC is no good. Win an extra 2 and we are almost guaranteed in. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Proud of the team. Great to hear we beat a team that goes to the big tournament pretty much every year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Note that AU won the rebound battle....a great step forward IMO....Heron with 12 RBs....good work for a guy his size....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, jared52 said:

Spencer and Brown not playing probably equaled their MVP not playing. It's a resume building win that will overcome the BC loss and help AU get in the NIT conversation again. 

 

2 hours ago, FoundationEagle said:

Just consider this. We won a total of 11 games last year. If we beat Uconn, we have ten wins before SEC play starts.  We will have 19 games remaining after that. If we can win just 9 of those and get 1 win in the SEC tourney, we are at 20 wins and a solid bubble team even if the SEC is no good. Win an extra 2 and we are almost guaranteed in. 

We can absolutely talk about this team with the realistic goal of being a bubble team at the end of the season. 

 

To do that we will need more than 9 SEC wins, imo. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent win. This team still has much room for improvement, and that is a good thing. We can only get better. It's nice to have so many guys who can step up and make a shot when it has to be done. I have to admit, Rob singing Happy Birthday to Dunans after his dunk was a pretty funny moment on the AU network. Cracked me up. Heron still reminds me of Marquise with his smooth moves. Looks like there is so little effort but coasts right by everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing I took away from the game last night is that our guys have the skills to be really good and they have the coaching to get them there.  There were a lot of small indicators (not just the win).  We look like we can be competitive on the big stage and I'm proud of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i am in no ways a true basketball guy ... i also have been ok with the offense we have been running ... but it seemed like there was a little more flair to the offense last night (although we missed shots) ... agree/disagree?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Note that AU won the rebound battle....a great step forward IMO....Heron with 12 RBs....good work for a guy his size....

Good to win the overall RB but we lost the offensive RB battle by 9 and we had 9 more turnovers than OU. That is 18 more offensive possession for the sooners. Our D has to be really good to allow teams more possessions every game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, 80Tiger said:

Good to win the overall RB but we lost the offensive RB battle by 9 and we had 9 more turnovers than OU. That is 18 more offensive possession for the sooners. Our D has to be really good to allow teams more possessions every game.

Yep....turnovers really hurt us but we out-rebounded their missed shots 37 to 17 which was good for us.  They took and missed a lot of shots and fortunately we got about 2/3rd of those RBs....which I guess is not a bad ratio.    Call it good defense or just a bad shooting night for the Okies....AU outshot them from the field by 44% to 32% and outshot them for 3s also.

Someone who studies that stuff more than I do might have a different view.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Impressive win for our team. Folks will point to them being without their best player but we were down 2 starters as well. I was really surprised that we lost the turnover battle and still won the game. I would have put money on that not being possible but OK shooting around 30% for the game will do that for you. But even with OK not playing their best game we showed a lot of poise to absorb their late runs and never give up the lead. I think we got a little sloppy when we got ahead by double digits but hopefully that is something these guys will clean up as they go through the season. Harper had a heck of a second half but I want to give Johnson a shout out for making that possible. We were struggling big time to score at the start of the game. To me we looked hesitant and I was worried OK was about to give our guys a lesson on how an experienced team can shut down a young team who isn't use to having guys in their face who can keep up with them step for step. Pearl puts Johnson in and suddenly our half court offense hits another gear and OK goes on their back foot. I could just imagine the coaches in Harper's ear while he was sitting and saying "that is how you back them off, by taking the ball right at them". From that point on Harper took the fight to OK. We are very lucky to have Johnson on this team, even if Harper might have some better tools the value Johnson brings to this team is hard to measure. Also huge night by Dunans, as much as Johnson lit a spark Dunans did as well. Dunans is such a heady player, it may look like he is out of control sometime but he more than makes up for the bad with all the good he does. Rebounding, scoring, defense.....he really does a little bit of everything for this team. Really enjoying watching this team play this year!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, mustache eagle said:

i am in no ways a true basketball guy ... i also have been ok with the offense we have been running ... but it seemed like there was a little more flair to the offense last night (although we missed shots) ... agree/disagree?

Strongly agree. We still went through slow times where our guys stood around on offense, but that actually needs to happen some to give them a breather. What I saw was Wiley moving around a lot which seemed to trigger everyone else moving around more. This is pretty much all I have been concerned about was our lack of movement on offense. Last night, we seemed to be running an actual offense that consisted of picks and screens and movement without the ball. It was a huge step in the right direction IYAM.  It wasn't always pretty as it somewhat a new element to our offense and will take time get it flowing smoothly. If we continue to move in that direction and improve game to game, we will definitely be a tournament quality team (even though we could still have a record that doesn't get us there). 

As far as needing more than 9 wins in SEC play to make the NCAA, it's all relative. 9 wins COULD get us there IF we beat UCONN and maybe TCU also with a win in SEC tourney. We would be the definition of a bubble team, so there would be a ton of factors at that point. I do feel we COULD win 12 to 14 SEC games which would have us in for sure. Of course, if we have some setbacks in development or get the injury bug, 9 SEC wins may be a stretch also.  Will be interesting year for sure. Next year, look out though!

(I may need a chalkboard this year to continually write on "I will not over react to any event with this young team...I will not over react to any event with this young team...I will not over react to any event with this young team...........) ;D 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a great performance by Harper. Hard to believe he is a freshman. It's good to know we have a player who has the killer instinct to be aggressive with a lead instead of playing not to lose with a lead. Even if we don't get to the dance this year, I believe we will surely make it next year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, gravejd said:

Impressive win for our team. Folks will point to them being without their best player but we were down 2 starters as well. I was really surprised that we lost the turnover battle and still won the game. I would have put money on that not being possible but OK shooting around 30% for the game will do that for you. But even with OK not playing their best game we showed a lot of poise to absorb their late runs and never give up the lead. I think we got a little sloppy when we got ahead by double digits but hopefully that is something these guys will clean up as they go through the season. Harper had a heck of a second half but I want to give Johnson a shout out for making that possible. We were struggling big time to score at the start of the game. To me we looked hesitant and I was worried OK was about to give our guys a lesson on how an experienced team can shut down a young team who isn't use to having guys in their face who can keep up with them step for step. Pearl puts Johnson in and suddenly our half court offense hits another gear and OK goes on their back foot. I could just imagine the coaches in Harper's ear while he was sitting and saying "that is how you back them off, by taking the ball right at them". From that point on Harper took the fight to OK. We are very lucky to have Johnson on this team, even if Harper might have some better tools the value Johnson brings to this team is hard to measure. Also huge night by Dunans, as much as Johnson lit a spark Dunans did as well. Dunans is such a heady player, it may look like he is out of control sometime but he more than makes up for the bad with all the good he does. Rebounding, scoring, defense.....he really does a little bit of everything for this team. Really enjoying watching this team play this year!

We were also without Purifoy almost the entire 1st half as he was on the bench with 2 fouls very early on, so I'd say for half the game, they had the advantage in that we had 3 crucial pieces missing and we had the slight advantage the other half with having Purifoy back on the court. Pretty much a wash if not a deficit for us in personnel missing.  I'd surely say is missing all 3 of those guys is worse than them missing 1 player. Us missing the 2 guys for the second half may be even to them missing the one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...