Now that we are at the midway point of the season and have played enough games to make some reasonable observations, I will break my self-imposed hiatus to offer some thoughts. Don't worry, I won't be posting regularly, although I do appreciate a few of you who felt the need to take shots at me even as I didn't post for several months.
Credit to Moser for completely reshaping the roster in the offseason. We went from being one of the least athletic P5 teams in the country to a team with above average athleticism at multiple spots. We are physically capable of doing things the past two teams could only dream of. I figured we would be better in this department than last year, but didn’t think we would make this big a jump. Again, props to Moser for finding several Big 12 caliber athletes.
JM is very good. I love the way he can create his shot, and his hesitation and step backs are outstanding. He needs to get to the line more. He is a 90 percent shooter, but that doesn’t help much when you only shoot 1 or 2 FTs per game. His size probably makes him reluctant to drive more, but we need him drawing fouls and getting us a few free points per game at the line. I also wish he would be more aggressive looking for his offense early in games. In both losses, he has been too passive for my liking.
Uzan has shown positive signs the past couple games after a bad start to the season. Yes, his assist numbers were fine, and he wasn’t turning it over a ton, but there were several games where he was absolutely no threat offensively. His perimeter shooting has also fallen off a cliff. For a guy people were hyping as a potential first round pick, he clearly hasn’t taken a leap from last season. I hope the last two games are a springboard for him, but he still needs to find his shot. If he does, this team could still improve over the next two months.
Oweh’s last two games are concerning after a great noncon. Let’s hope he finds his offense again, quickly. The one thing he has complete control over is the dumb fouls he has been picking up early in games. I realize his physicality is part of what makes him good, but he can’t commit silly fouls bodying guys far from the basket.
Godwin plays his role extremely well. Last night is a reminder that we need him to stay out of foul trouble. Hugley is a big improvement over Tanner. He and Sam give us two very different skillsets. I still worry that there will be games where we struggle against really good bigs. It'll be interesting to see how they handle Dickinson Saturday.
Moore is an explosive athlete who can really help when he is on. But his decisions aren't always great, and even though he has had a couple games where he has shot it well from deep, I would prefer that not be a regular part of his game. He needs to eliminate the games where he is a nonfactor offensively. With his athleticism, he should always be get on the offensive glass or grab 50-50 balls. I fear teams will take away the lobs and explosive dunks as we go through conference play.
My biggest concern and frustration is that, despite having upped the talent and athleticism exponentially, Moser still cannot get a grip on the turnovers. It is inexcusable, and it has been an issue since the first game of his first year in Norman. We played an awful noncon schedule, and even against that level of competition, we entered conference play with horrible turnover numbers. You can get away with that against all the NET 300 teams we played, but in the only two games we have played against good teams in tough environments, we saw what happens when you turn the ball over like crazy from the opening minutes of the game. Certain guys (Hugley and Moore come to mind) need to learn that they should not be handling the ball in traffic. Moser needs to make sure they understand that. That comes down to coaching and teaching. The sloppiness with the ball, and general sloppy/dumb play last night (fouling 3-pt shooters, getting burned multiple times on BLOBs) is why I expect this team to only win a couple road games. Those are losing plays, and it has been a staple of the past three seasons. Our backcourt is very good, but even they sometimes take unnecessary risks with the ball. We could have been up 10 in the first half last night if we valued the ball better.
The other big concern is a lack of shooting. Yes, Oweh is shooting a great percentage, but he only attempts one 3 per game. Uzan has regressed badly from 3. Soares isn’t a shooter, and Darthard – yikes. I’m confident in guessing that right now, when opponents prepare for his, JM is the only guy they worry about shooting threes. I think they are more than happy when Soares, Darthard, Moore, and Hugley shoot threes.
One other thought. We spent the first 6-8 weeks blowing out a lot of REALLY bad teams. I wish Moser had scheduled more quality teams to prepare us for Big 12 play. But since he didn’t, and we had so many blowouts, it is hard to understand why he didn’t play Cooper more. Much like Oweh last year, he missed a chance to get valuable experience. If he had played, say, twice as many minutes as he did, there are a couple things that could have happened. Ideally, he would have played well, gained confidence, and given the staff a reason to think that he could help them for a few minutes off the bench in league play. Last night is an example of where we could have used him. Soares was in early foul trouble. Darthard had as bad a game as he could possibly have – even his defense, which is usually very good, was bad. Oweh was a nonfactor much of the night. Having Cooper prepared to play a few minutes would have been a nice option to have. And even if Cooper had played poorly if given more minutes in noncon, he would have at least gained experience and gotten some of the growing pains out of the way. He is the only guy outside the top 8 who could realistically help this team in league play. Northweather is not a high major player, and I expect/hope he won’t be on the roster next season.
Bottom line, we are much more fun to watch, and our ceiling is far higher than last season. But we won’t make the leap from “we played tough, it’s hard to win on the road in this league” to “that was a hell of a road win” unless we start valuing the ball for 40 minutes and eliminate some of the sloppy, careless mistakes.
Oh, I almost forgot. What an idiot I was for believing that Kevin McCullar was going to take a massive leap this season. Clearly, that dude will never score more than 13 or so a game and be a complimentary player.
