Sooners survive, Cowboys don’t
Two trips to the Brazos Valley. Only one successful. OU’s basketball team survived69-63 at Texas A&M, but OSU lost a 98-92 overtime heartbreaker at Baylor. Thoughts from the two games:
* OSU’s best player is Obi Muonelo, and the Cowboys played valiantly without him for most of the second half. Obi can shoot outside, drive inside and has become one of the league’s best rebounders.
* Austin Johnson is turning into a solid point guard, and the reason it takes us so long to accept that is he doesn’t look like one. He’s not all that quick. He’s not the greatest penetrator. He’s got really long arms, which is great for any basketball player but really not something you think about on a point guard. More on a wing player or a center.
* I was pulling for Keiton Page to stay the hero in the final seconds, and he almost was. Five points in about a 10-second span that lifted OSU from four down to one up, and only an iffy foul with 2.5 seconds left bailed out Baylor.
* Willie Warren sure didn’t show up much Saturday for someone who played 39 minutes. He had five assists and nine points, but sometimes you wondered if he was on the court.
* OSU is doomed if the refs are going to call it close. The Cowboys have no inside presence to speak of, so they have to scrap around, and if the game turns whistle-happy, OSU is in trouble. The Cowboys were called for 28 fouls.
* You won’t see this very often: the Griffin brothers played a combined 61 minutes and combined for just 10 rebounds.
* I came away from both games feeling better about the post-season. Excellent road win for the Sooners, who now are 2-0 on the Big 12 road. And if the Cowboys can play like this on the Big 12 road, they will total enough victories to get to at least 9-7 in the league, which is what I think they need to make the NCAA Tournament.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment