Brown key matchup versus Texas
Texas guard J’Covan Brown leads the Big 12 in scoring, averaging close to 20 points. How Oklahoma defends the 6-foot-1 junior is the key matchup when the Sooners host the Longhorns Tuesday night at Lloyd Noble Center.
Brown has been especially hot the past three weeks. He’s averaged 22.4 points and 5.0 assists the past five games.
“He doesn’t have to be shooting it to be the key guy, either,” said OU coach Lon Kruger. “He can penetrate and distribute. But he’s always a threat to score. He can hit the 3 and put the ball on the floor. That makes him hard to guard. Everyone on him obviously has to work hard.”
In a strange scheduling quirk, the Sooners (13-11 overall, 3-9 in league play) are done playing Kansas and Kansas State and have played every team except Texas. The rematch is scheduled in two weeks in Austin.
The Longhorns (16-9, 6-6) are riding a three-game winning streak. They’re projected as a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.
“They’re playing as well as they have all year these past three ballgames,” Kruger said. “They had a big road win (at Texas A&M) and a 27-point swing Saturday against Kansas State. They were down 15 in the second half and went up 12. That’s a pretty impressive run.”
The Sooners are riding a season-worst four-game losing streak, including an embarrassing loss Saturday at Texas Tech, which was winless in league play entering the game.
“That was really surprising,” Kruger said. “Not to take anything away from Tech’s win because their guys worked really hard. But we weren’t pleased with what we did. We hadn’t really done that for awhile. Our practices had been good.
“We thought we had been playing as good as basketball the past couple of weeks as we’ve been playing all year. Then to come out and not have much going on either end was surprising, disappointing all those things.”
Kruger, though, stressed players continue to work hard.
“We’ve been practicing well,” Kruger said. “The enthusiasm level has been good. We have to transfer that (to games). It goes back to being a little bit more physical. We keep focusing on that, initiating some of that. We’ve done it at times but not consistently.”