If you haven't read it already, take some time to read Bill's Study Hall post about this game. He talked about some things that had caught my attention during the game. So I'll skip those parts. And move on to others.
Bill also brought up the 18-0 run, which isn't good. What's even worse is that when Deuce Bello (!) hit a 3-pointer to bring the score to 21-20 Sooners with 8 minutes to go in the first half, Oklahoma went on a 31-5 run over the next fifteen minutes of game play. 2-18, 8 fouls, 5 turnovers. That's about as bad of a stretch of basketball as this team has played all year. Somehow Mizzou managed to make 9 of their 16 attempts from 3 and lose this badly. Part of that is that the percentage of Three Point Shots they took that were good 3's vs. bad threes was as good as it's been all year. The next part of that is that they were so inefficient inside the arc it was alarming.
So for now, let's look at some...
STATS!
Games | 1-5 | CHAM | SEMO | OKLA | TOTAL |
FG% | 39.8 | 48.0 | 50.0 | 42.4 | 42.3 |
3FG% | 32.9 | 42.9 | 53.3 | 56.3 | 39.0 |
FT% | 66.7 | 65.4 | 56.5 | 50.0 | 64.2 |
FG | 104-261 | 24-50 | 22-44 | 25-59 | 175-414 |
3FG | 31-94 | 9-21 | 8-15 | 9-16 | 57-146 |
FT | 70-105 | 17-26 | 13-23 | 4-8 | 104-162 |
Reb | -6 | +14 | +1 | -7 | -1 |
39% from 3, 42.3% overall. One is pretty good. The other is really bad. Field Goal percentage overall right now is 226th in the country. Only Ole Miss and Auburn are worse right now, and Auburn is a team that was held to 35 points in a loss to Tulsa, and 44 points in a loss to Texas Tech. When you're offense isn't churning like you'd hope it to, you have to find other ways to score points, and that is another thing that this team doesn't do. They shot 8 Free Throws against Oklahoma. Granted, you aren't going to get a lot of calls on the road, but you certainly aren't going to get to the line if you aren't attacking the basket. Which is a nice segue into...
Point Guards
From a point guard perspective this was a weird game. After playing a solid 25 minutes against SEMO, Tramaine Isabell only saw 5 minutes against the Sooners. Granted those were 5 minutes of relatively being outmatched, but still just 5 minutes. Not exactly a good sign if he's not competitive against better competition. Also, take into account that this was Wes Clarks first game back from his 1 game suspension, and even he only played 19 minutes and it was weird to see Isabell only get 5.
Shamburger played his usual 30 plus minutes, and he can't seem to shake his turnover troubles. He's at exactly 1:1 assist to turnover ration, which isn't horrible... if that's your whole team. But your main Point Guard is supposed to be a little bit better with the ball than Shamburger has been. Clark meanwhile is at around 1.7:1 Assist-to-turnover. Which is better but still not great. For some context, to be in the top 50 for A:T you need to be around 3:1. Phil Pressey was 2.62:1 in 2012 and 2:1 in 2013. I'd like to see Clark get closer to 2:1 by the end of the year, and Shamburger get to at least 1.5:1. This team needs to take care of the ball so much better, and it starts with these three players.
Effort
I don't know that they didn't play hard. They just played so bad it was hard to know the difference. Getting outrebounded by 7 isn't good by any stretch. They did "hold" Ryan Spangler to 5 rebounds, well below his season average. And JW3 nabbed 8 rebounds, his highest output this year. Outside of that I never felt like our guys weren't playing hard. They got down a bit as the deficit grew, but what team doesn't? They came out of the gates with good energy for a change, but in the end it just wasn't enough because of their other flaws.
Balance
The bench shortened a bit, which I'm not sure is either a good or bad thing, but it's a thing. 30 minutes each for Shamburger, Williams & MGC. Rosburg, Wright, Allen and Clark all within 19-26 minutes. That's solid enough.
- Keith Shamburger: 30 minutes
- Johnathan Williams III: 30 minutes
- Montaque Gill-Caesar: 30 minutes
- Ryan Rosburg: 26 minutes
- Namon Wright: 21 minutes
- D'Angelo Allen: 19 minutes
- Wes Clark: 19 minutes
- Deuce Bello: 15 minutes
- Tramaine Isabell: 5 minutes
- Keanau Post: 5 minutes
I would be going small more often than not. I'd be trying to get Post a few minutes early each game to see which guy was going to show up(because he's had enough moments to get the shot). If he's terrible? He sits. If he's good? He plays more. I don't think I would play Rosburg more than 15-18 minutes a game. I'd try to get JW3 30 minutes, Clark 30 minutes, MGC 30 minutes. When/If Gant comes back, I'd be doing everything I can to get him and Wright 20 minutes at least. After that, I'd be looking for Isabell to get about 10-12 minutes, Allen 15-18 minutes. And, quite honestly, I'm dropping Shamburger down a bit.
[Editor's note: If you missed the game and want to rewatch it for some reason]
There really aren't a lot of good answers at this point. This team needs to find more ways to manufacture points. This team needs to take better care of the ball. And this team needs to find more inspiration to play defense. If you go on the road and give up 82 points, you're going to lose most nights.