No thread? No worries. Final score was US winning by 10, but if you watched the game you know if we'd played the final 4 min we would have won by 20. Woodard stepped up when Buddy got in foul trouble early in 1st half. Cousins still shooting well and Lattin had another nice game. We may still be ranked #1 but no worse than #2 as I suspect NC will elevate to the top spot. Doesn't matter, on track for a One Seed.
Also, we shot 62% from the field, 57% from beyond the arc. We do that and we beat anyone. Hands down.
This game is a blueprint of what LK needs Cousins to do. 5-6 from the field, 9 assists and a couple of steals on Offense. Defense was great. Freeman never got much going. When Cousins doesn't turn the ball over, is a low volume, high percentage shooter this team looks unbeatable. Not sure why we took so long to get going against the Baylor 1-3-1 zone. I've seen Baylor play a few times and this looks to be their base defense so I assume this didn't take us by surprise.
The XII is just brutal this year. Besides Cousins, the other really important offensive piece was Spangler draining some 3s. He has to get back to his pre-conference form. He looked really good there for about 5 minutes, and it was enough to get him to double figures. Boy was our bench disappointing though, especially James and Odomes there at the end. It seems like those guys have fallen apart. At least Buford is stepping up. Was Manyang sick again or something?
That first part of the 2nd half. OU could do no wrong. 3's were raining from all over by everyone. I was just waiting for Lattin to launch one up from behind the line. I don't think OU coulda played much better. Glad they solved the zone D. That was one fun game to watch. Thanks Sooners. 5-0
The biggest difference the last 2 games for Cousins is that he isn't taking as many highly contested 3s. Heck when we went on that run, we took 1 bad shot - Hield with a pull up heat check with a guy in his grill. Everything else was what I'd call an excellent shot. When we move the ball like this and take those kind of shots, our shooting percentage is crazy high.
Great game...minus the last 5 min. Man, the subs..3 straight TOs with little to no effort. OUhoops has more posters went there... Yeah, the one "bad" was the lack of really attacking the 1-3-1 in the post. I saw several opportunities for a 2 on 1 if lattin and spang reacted quicker. Bottom line is a win. I'd agree, should stay #1 sure if unc wins they'll jump us... that's ok...it's the end.
*Big* time. We basically had a 2-on-1 at the basket any time we could get a pass into the low block, and we were getting passes down there pretty much whenever we felt like it. But every time we did (other than Lattin's one half-hearted alley-oop) we were looking for someone open to hit a 3. It turned out to be a fine strategy, but we won't *always* be hitting north of 50% from 3
I have to think that Spangler's knee is more of a problem than most think. There were multiple instances yesterday where he looked really out of whack. He sailed an about 12 foot pass over a couple of feet over the head of the cutter out of bounds. Another shot where he caught it just off the blocks, maybe an eight foot shot, he didn't even draw iron it was so far off. On several other occasions he gets the ball at the blocks extended, pretty much wide open and instead of driving or shooting he passes it off. One of those occasions he had a clear path, one dribble and a layup and he didn't take it. I don't think this will go unnoticed by future opponents. Not sure if he can't push off or has limited motion but something isn't right. If Spangler was right, Baylor would not have put the beatdown to us on the boards like they did yesterday. He just has no lift.
I am wondering about Manyang as well. I wonder if it has more to do with Buford stepping up and giving good minutes. If Spangler is indeed having some trouble with his knee it would be good to find a way to get him a little more rest and that would be a good way to do it. Ideally we get on TT early and build up a significant lead and then the bench can get some more minutes. I don't know that any of the schedule is "easy" but I think we are now heading into the part of the schedule where we should be able to run off some wins without having to shoot lights out.
honestly I think Manyang had to do with match-ups. Yeah he is big, but doesn't move as well. Gathers is thick but Prince is mobile...considering how much we switch that wouldn't have worked. Just my 2 cents. Latin kept fronting Gathers thus allowing him inside position on the boards. Guess the staff thought Lattin wasn't thick enough to keep him from backing down too close to the bucket. Not to bag on a kid, but I've been somewhat disappointed with Manyang. He's got length but that's about it. He needs ballet classes or something to get some fluidity to his movement. I know he had a bad foot for the first couple of months, just thought he'd def have more production at this point.
