Thoughts on the Texas game

[oketex]

Guys I don't know if its just me but it seems that Manik goes into a tunnel if he doesn't hit his first couple of shots then he seems to sulk for the rest of the game. It may just be me but sometimes I think he acts like a big baby.

 

[thebigabd]

Not to burst everyones Manek bubble, but he still had 10 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. He definitely sucked from the field, but lets not act like he did nothing.

 

[sheepdogs1]

Not to burst everyones Manek bubble, but he still had 10 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. He definitely sucked from the field, but lets not act like he did nothing.

They are not really focusing on production as they are his frame of mind. That's how I see it.

 

[daqman]

Tough loss. Sucks. Shot awful and wilted at the end. Like I stated previously this team is exceptionally hard to root for sometimes. The swings are wild with them. Gotta win Saturday or we are bubblicious!

Hey, at least you got to celebrate a garbage win on saturday.

Tough loss for sure. But Texas has some really good players and they have either figured things out or they're a wounded lion playing for their tourney lives. They have some amazing individual talent on that team.

 

[Hollisp]

Hey, at least you got to celebrate a garbage win on saturday.

No win is a garbage win. Especially with this team.

 

[soonerbms]

I have some thoughts:

- Reaves inexplicably grabbed a guy’s leg late in the game
- Doo missed two FTs to close out a rival on HIS senior night
- We shot 2/20 from distance which has to be some sort of school record for futility
- We lost to a ****ty team that was down a few guys

 

[BCSooners]

I recorded the game & when I accidently saw the score I deleted it. Based solely on the box score seemed like a disastrous shooting night. Bad shots or just couldn't make anything?

 

[soonerjunky]

All of the people here blaming one player or another are ridiculous. This was a team loss. AR, KD, JB all had bad nights. KD had 20 and 10, but missed crucial FT's. This is a team loss and this team will be much better next season with the only loss of KD.
Let's focus on beating TCU and getting into the tourney. As you've all learned this team is not a good shooting team. Been that way all season and it's not going to change.

 

[MrAnderson]

Mrs Anderson

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, a bit trying to find a silver lining. And statistically we have a better shot at the S16 as a double digit seed than as an 8/9.

But if mysogonystic name calling is how you cope, then by all means.

 

[sheepdogs1]

It was like playing a round of golf where another player in the foursome is poor and it spreads to the rest of the group.

 

[WichitaSooner]

I recorded the game & when I accidently saw the score I deleted it. Based solely on the box score seemed like a disastrous shooting night. Bad shots or just couldn't make anything?

More of the latter. The offense wasn't great but definitely wasn't awful. Plenty of the missed threes were good looks, including some from Manek. Manek also fumbled away a couple easy layup opportunities. I know it will be forever lost given the way the game ended and how low scoring it was, but Fran mentioned several times on the broadcast how good a job Lon does finding and exploiting mismatches, and he gave several examples of him doing that very thing last night. I'm sure a lot of people on the board will dismiss that since they refuse to believe that we run any offense, but I'll trust a guy who was a successful D-1 coach, knows the Big 12 better than any other announcer, and is a very well respected basketball mind.

One thing that I wish Lon would change in late-game situations -- I wish he would put at least one player in the lane when we are shooting free throws. I know why he chooses not to -- to make sure we have everyone back on defense, and to avoid any risk of picking up a foul on the rebound. But I hate giving the other team a free opportunity to get the rebound and immediately start up the floor. If you have even one guy in the lane, it likely forces them to spend an extra second or two in the backcourt, and that likely means they would have to settle for a 35-footer rather than a shot from right outside the arc.

 

[cowboysooner]

BTW, it was not my intent to complain that we were mistreated by the officials, but rather to complain that the NCAA has decided to allow basketball to become a less bloody version of the MMA. I feel they will continue down this path until we are back to games played in the 20s to 30s.

Like I said, I wasn't complaining about bias, considering the way they allow the game to be played now, but rather complaining about how they are allowing the game to be played by all teams.

Lon tries to get his kids to play the right way defensively and they do a pretty good job of it. We might be even better if we started grabbing them and arm barring them when they are dribbling, reaching and hitting arms and wrists when defending on ball, and jumping on everyone's back and moving them when their feet leave the ground under the rim. You don't have to stay vertical anymore when defending people when they shoot as you are allowed to bring your arm down over the space above a shooter.

 

[Hollisp]

I recorded the game & when I accidently saw the score I deleted it.

Wish I would have done this.

 

[steverocks35]

I think our "offense" is horrible. Iso-ball 99% of the time is just so easy to defend. You have to have superior offensive players (like the NBA) to pull off that sort of gameplan. I don't understand why we don't incorporate motion and ball movement and try to get our guys layups and easy shots.

 

[thebigabd]

I think our "offense" is horrible. Iso-ball 99% of the time is just so easy to defend. You have to have superior offensive players (like the NBA) to pull off that sort of gameplan. I don't understand why we don't incorporate motion and ball movement and try to get our guys layups and easy shots.

He has no choice... He has a serious roster management and talent problem. And that is with NO injuries. Point guards are terrible. OU's point guards combined for 68 minutes yesterday and scored 4 points and had 3 assists. They had more air balls than assists.

His only option is to iso Doolittle and hope it creates something for Manek if he doesn't score himself.

 

[BoulderSooner]

I think our "offense" is horrible. Iso-ball 99% of the time is just so easy to defend. You have to have superior offensive players (like the NBA) to pull off that sort of gameplan. I don't understand why we don't incorporate motion and ball movement and try to get our guys layups and easy shots.

screen roll is not "iso ball"

 

[BoulderSooner]

Where are all the sunshine pumpers to tell us how this wasn't ACKSHUALLY a bad loss, that Texas is an amazing team, and we really played a great game, just couldn't pull it out at the end against awesome competition?

this factually was not a bad loss .. in any way ..

 

[BCSooners]

I think our "offense" is horrible. Iso-ball 99% of the time is just so easy to defend. You have to have superior offensive players (like the NBA) to pull off that sort of gameplan. I don't understand why we don't incorporate motion and ball movement and try to get our guys layups and easy shots.

Serious question. Who runs a good motion offense in college?

The problem with motion is that it's easy to scout & take away the goal of the offense, there's a shot clock so it's hard to break off motion & get a good shot, not many players want to play that way because it hurts their development to create.

I thought OU's movement out of the ISO principles have been a lot better than earlier in the season (I did not watch yesterday). My favorite offense is UNC's, a great version of read & react with post actions. It's also hard to learn and play freely for freshmen, or anyone on this year's team.

 

[SoonerinNC]

We have had two significant problems all season. Shooting and weakness in the middle. The shooting deficit in shooting hit us in spades last night. Texas played good D but we missed a lot of open shots that we often hit.

Their big hurt us only one time inside last night but the quick penetrating guards exploited a weakness that also showed up against Iowa State up there. We have a team that is legit in the 20-35 range but we lack some of the key ingredients that would move us up to the next tier.

 

[steverocks35]

screen roll is not "iso ball"

We don't screen roll. We screen trying to get bad matchups and then iso out of it. If we actually ran screen and roll that would be better than what we do.