OU-Missouri Stats/Notes/Quotes [SoonerSports.com]

[OUHoops]

http://www.soonersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2011-2012/02-06-12.html

Official Basketball Box Score
Missouri vs Oklahoma
02/06/12 6 p.m. CT at Norman, Okla. (Lloyd Noble Center)

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VISITORS: Missouri 22-2, 9-2
                          TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
10 Ratliffe, Ricardo... f  6-6    0-0    3-5    3  7 10   4  15  1  1  1  0  32
01 Pressey, Phil....... g  2-3    0-0    1-2    0  1  1   4   5  7  3  0  2  28
03 Pressey, Matt....... g  2-5    0-2    1-4    0  1  1   1   5  2  2  0  2  29
12 Denmon, Marcus...... g  9-16   4-9    3-3    0  1  1   2  25  0  4  0  2  39
24 English, Kim........ g  3-7    1-4    1-2    0  1  1   4   8  4  2  0  3  37
11 Dixon, Michael......    5-11   2-6    1-2    0  1  1   3  13  5  0  0  1  24
32 Moore, Steve........    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  3  3   0   0  0  0  1  0  11
   TEAM................                            4  4
   Totals..............   27-48   7-21  10-18   3 19 22  18  71 19 12  2 10 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 14-26 53.8%   2nd Half: 13-22 59.1%   Game: 56.3%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  4-13 30.8%   2nd Half:  3-8  37.5%   Game: 33.3%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half:  4-6  66.7%   2nd Half:  6-12 50.0%   Game: 55.6%    3


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HOME TEAM: Oklahoma 13-10, 3-8
                          TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
04 Fitzgerald, Andrew.. f  5-10   0-0    2-2    3  1  4   3  12  1  2  0  0  32
24 Osby, Romero........ f  3-8    0-0    3-8    2  4  6   2   9  2  5  0  1  29
01 Grooms, Sam......... g  7-9    0-0    3-7    0  2  2   3  17 10  2  0  1  38
02 Pledger, Steven..... g  8-14   5-9    1-4    1  4  5   4  22  1  4  0  2  38
21 Clark, Cameron...... g  0-1    0-1    0-2    1  0  1   1   0  0  1  1  1  18
05 Washington, C.J.....    1-6    0-0    0-0    3  4  7   1   2  1  0  0  1  14
14 Blair, Carl.........    2-3    2-2    0-0    0  5  5   2   6  3  1  0  0  26
15 Neal, Tyler.........    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  1  1   1   0  0  1  0  0   2
32 Arent, Casey........    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  0  0  0  0   3
   TEAM................                         3  2  5
   Totals..............   26-51   7-12   9-23  13 23 36  17  68 18 16  1  6 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 15-28 53.6%   2nd Half: 11-23 47.8%   Game: 51.0%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  3-4  75.0%   2nd Half:  4-8  50.0%   Game: 58.3%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half:  0-7   0.0%   2nd Half:  9-16 56.3%   Game: 39.1%    7


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Officials: Tom O'Neill, Kelly Self, Kipp Kissinger
Technical fouls: Missouri-None. Oklahoma-None.
Attendance: 7994
Score by Periods                1st  2nd   Total
Missouri......................   36   35  -   71
Oklahoma......................   33   35  -   68
Estimated Attendance: 5036

Points in the paint-MU 28,OU 12. Points off turnovers-MU 18,OU 16.
2nd chance points-MU 7,OU 12. Fast break points-MU 10,OU 0.
Bench points-MU 13,OU 8. Score tied-4 times. Lead changed-5 times.
Last FG-MU 2nd-00:57, OU 2nd-03:35.
Largest lead-MU by 10 2nd-14:51, OU by 6 1st-05:33.

 

[OUHoops]

Re: OU-Missouri Box Score [SoonerSports.com]

http://www.soonersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/archive/020612aaa.html

• After losing by 38 to Missouri on Jan. 3 in the Big 12 opener for both teams, the Sooners dropped a 71-68 home contest to the fourth-ranked Tigers tonight. Steven Pledger’s potential game-tying 3-pointer was just off the mark at the buzzer.

• The Sooners led much of the first half (by as many 6 at 29-23) before falling behind by three at the break, 36-33. Missouri ballooned its lead to 10 (50-40) and held on as OU crawled to within two points on multiple occasions, including with 1:30 to go.

• OU entered the game with a .746 season free throw mark (.767 in Big 12 play) but went just 9-for-23 (.391) tonight. Its previous season low (at least 10 attempts) was .611 against Washington State in the third game of the year. The Sooners missed their first eight attempts tonight.

• Oklahoma was outrebounded 38-23 in the first meeting in Columbia, but posted a 36-22 advantage on the glass tonight. The Sooners grabbed 13 offensive rebounds to Missouri’s three, and outscored the Tigers 12-7 on second-chance opportunities.

• OU went 7-for-12 (.583) from 3-point range, its most conversions in 15 games (went 8-for-16 Dec. 10 against Arkansas).

• Junior guard Sam Grooms scored a career-high 17 points (previous high was 12) and tied a career best with 10 assists while committing just two turnovers in 38 minutes. Grooms, who entered the game shooting .324 from the field, was 7-for-9 from the floor. He leads the Big 12 with his 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Over the last seven games, he has 50 assists and nine turnovers (5.6 ratio).

• Junior guard Steven Pledger scored a team-high 22 points on 8-for-14 field goal and 5-for-9 3-point shooting. It was his seventh game of at least 20 points this year (tallied three such outings last season). His five treys set an OU season high. Pledger was just 1-for-4 from the free throw line after entering the game with a .897 season mark to rank eighth nationally. He had made 44 of his previous 46 attempts (27-for-28 in Big 12 play) going back to Dec. 10.

• Junior forward Andrew Fitzgerald scored 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting, good for his 17th double-figures effort in the last 18 games.

 

[OUHoops]

Re: OU-Missouri Box Score [SoonerSports.com]

http://www.soonersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/archive/020612aab.html

Head Coach Lon Kruger
Opening comment:
“It was a good battle tonight. Obviously, Missouri is a terrific ball club. I really like what Frank (Haith) has done with that team. They play with great confidence and great awareness. They shoot it very, very well and they play well together. So they’re a really good club. I’m proud of our guys’ fight. We are just going to continue to work and get better. It is frustrating, I know, to the players, coaches and fans, to everyone to not get the result that we want. We just have to keep getting better. We keep telling our guys afterwards, ‘Good battle and good work, but we’ve got to keep doing things from a habit standpoint to have more good possessions in a ball game, enough to get over the hump against good basketball teams.’ In this league you are always playing good teams. I know we have some work to do. The guys will keep working at it. That is something they have done every day. I know they will keep doing that so I’m happy about that.”

On OU’s offensive possession with 3.9 seconds to go:
“We were trying to get it in bounds and out of Roe’s (Romero Osby) hands quickly and back to Pledge (Steven Pledger). But, they fouled on the catch, which is a generally a good strategy.”

On OU’s struggles from the free throw line:
“It is hard to explain because we have shot free throws very well. Certainly Pledge is one of the top shooters in the country. When you play the game long enough, it will happen, unfortunately. It happened kind of with everyone it seemed. As a team we have shot it well all year. It’s a hard thing to explain missing those early ones. It got a little contagious, perhaps. Again, it was just bad timing for that.”

On Romero Osby’s health:
“I’m not making any excuses for Roe, but he has been battling the flu bug. He didn’t practice yesterday. So, he got a lot of fluids into him today. Given the way he was feeling, I was proud of the fact he went out there and battled and did the things that he did do.”

On players stepping up offensively:
“It was great to see Carl (Blair knock) down some shots tonight. We need that from Carl. I thought Sam’s (Grooms) effort tonight was terrific. We talked about the last couple days in preparation that the elbow jumper is going to be there. So he needed to step up and be aggressive. He did it with confidence and he did it aggressively. It took a little courage to do that. I liked his attack on the offensive end. So we need that, too. Obviously Pledge, Roe and Drew (Fitzgerald) are giving us some pretty consistent numbers. We just need to get some other guys feeling good about stepping up there. We still think they will.”

Junior Guard Sam Grooms
On the team still needing to improve in order to get the win:
“It’s not hard at all to understand the fact that in basketball you have tomorrow, but by the same token, you want to win at this point in time, right now. We just have certain plays and certain mishaps on the court that don’t allow us to do that right now. Like Coach said, when we’re ready to do it, we’ll do it. It’s up to us at the end of the day.”

On taking confidence away from tonight’s game after losing by 38 at Missouri in January:
“Definitely, I think that’s obvious. I think you saw that tonight, just playing as a team. We had more confidence from the beginning of the game. That’s just coming from us playing the last couple of games and just playing the total season. We first went up there and played them kind of shell shocked. We didn’t play like a team, we had a lot of broken down plays. Tonight you saw a team that was more together, that wanted to win, that wasn’t going to be scared of them and knew that we could play with them. Confidence wise, I think we’re right where we need to be. We just go to play, show it on the court.”

Junior Guard Steven Pledger
On the final shot of the game:
“It was perfect. The play was designed to miss the free throw and get the tip-out and we actually got the tip-out. It was on line; it felt good when it left my hand. It didn’t go in.”

On his and the team’s free throw shooting:
“The free throws were killer. I couldn’t even understand why I was missing, let alone the rest of the team. It’s something we’ve got to get better at.”

On defending Missouri’s guards:
“It was definitely challenging because Kimmy (Kim English) is a guard, he’s not a 4. (Romero Osby) is a good matchup, he can move his feet and things like that. But Kimmy is a little bit faster. We tried to contain, we held a little bit too much and gave them shots.”

Missouri Head Coach Frank Haith
Opening comment:
“This was a good road win for us. It wasn’t our best basketball, but on the road in the Big 12 it’s not always going to be pretty and not easy. Our guys found a way to rip one out on the road, executed when we needed to, and got stops when we needed to. It was a great road win for us."

On strategy in final seconds of the game:
“We wanted to foul them and then they missed the first free throw. Heck of a play by their kid to tip it out to (Steven) Pledger, but we did foul.”

On the quick turnaround following the Kansas game:
“Well, there’s no question you have to fight against all of that. You know, the emotional win and then you have a game at your place where you just play incredible and they didn’t play their best game. So, you get a false sense and you worry about what it’s going to be like when we get here. We talked about that with our team and how Oklahoma has done something we didn’t do. They went into Manhattan and won and we got our tails handed to us in Manhattan, Kan. That was an eye-opener and this team is getting better. Lon (Kruger) has done a great job with these guys. So, I knew they were going to execute their offense and they were going to play hard defensively. You heard these guys tell you because we stress it -- we didn’t play with the energy that we do on that end, on the defensive end. But I will say this: we talked about not losing and never letting them take the lead. That’s a sign of a good team. I think once they made runs, we executed when we needed to make a shot.”