Film Study: Reviewing OSU Basketball's Season-Opener (PFB+)

From the great @dustinragusa24:


Oklahoma State recorded its first win of the 2020-2021 basketball season this past Wednesday in Arlington, Texas. The Cowboys led for a majority of the game, although it remained fairly close throughout as the Mavericks did their best to hang with the Pokes. OSU’s leading scorer in this one was talented freshman Cade Cunningham, who finished with 21 points on 7 for 16 shooting (2 for 5 from three). Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe and Keylan Boone contributed a total of 21 points and combined for 19 rebounds. It took junior guard Isaac Likelele a while to get going offensively, but he finished with a nice statline of 9 points (3 for 4 shooting), 13 rebound and 7 assists.

The Pokes struggled to find the mark from distance, going 7 for 25 from three-point range, and shot 46% overall from the floor. Another key issue on the offensive side was turnovers, the Cowboys had 18 on the day leading to 29 points for UTA. Lastly, the free throw shooting has to improve from what we saw on Wednesday, the Pokes shot 52% on 27 attempts from the charity stripe. On the other side of the floor, OSU did well to hold the Mavericks to a 38% field goal percentage, including 19% from three, but they allowed the UTA guards too much penetration and this along with points off turnovers kept the Mavs in the game.

For today's post a wanted to take a quick look at the film and point out a few takeaways I had from the Cowboys first game of the year.

Cade Can Get Buckets

A little more than six minutes into Wednesday’s game, Cunningham was 0 for 3 with a turnover and the Cowboys were down 8 to 2. OSU was struggling to find any rhythm on offense, and Cunningham decided to take matters into his own hands. For his first bucket he’s able to find some space in the UTA zone defense and hit the mid-range jumper.

Cunningham then ties the game up for the Cowboys with this layup off the nice hesitation move.

Then he shows his range with the three ball.

Cunningham finished the half with 12 points on 5 for 11 shooting and 4 rebounds.

In the second half, the Mavericks had clawed their way back from a double digit deficit and tied the game up at 49 – 49. Cunningham again took matters into his own hands to give the Pokes the lead with this drive and finish in transition shown below.

As I mentioned above, Cunningham finished the day with 21 points, and he also added on 10 rebounds and 3 assists, however he also led the team with five turnovers. Aside from a few slow rotations on defense, which is expected of any freshman (even players of Cunningham’s caliber), and the occasional sloppiness with the ball were the only negatives I took away from his first performance. Additionally, I would like to see him take over like what you saw in the clips above more frequently, especially when the OSU offense is struggling to find a rhythm.

Ice Needs to Get Cooking Earlier

Earlier in this post I noted Likekele’s statline of 9 points, 13 rebound and 7 assists. This is impressive for a guard against any opponent, but the issue I have with it is how long it took Ice to get engaged in the scoring department against UTA. Likekele only attempted one shot in the first half, a three-pointer, and finished the first 20 minutes with 0 points. He didn’t score his first points until almost 10 minutes into the second half on this layup shown below.

Ice is able to get behind the zone defense and get in great position for the post up. This is something we saw him do pretty often last year, find way to score inside, especially when being guarded by a smaller guard. However, on Wednesday he seemed a little timid at times early on in regards to calling his own number on offense.

If this team is going to be successful, I think Ice has to be a double digit scorer and can’t wait until the second half to kick start his offensive game. That being said, he finished with a solid day and looked solid in all other aspects of his game.

Poor Passing

The Cowboys were careless at times against UTA with their passing. Whether this be passes on the perimeter, entry passes into the post or passes in transition, they gave the Mavericks too many opportunities to make plays on the ball. See below for an example.

A majority of the OSU turnovers came from poor passing and this is something that has to be cleaned up as the season moves forward.

Opponent Penetration

Overall, I thought the Pokes played well on defense against the Mavericks. Even though UTA missed some open looks, I thought OSU did a decent job of contesting shots and making it difficult for the Mavs to get things going from the outside. In addition, about 43% of UTA’s points came off of Cowboy turnovers.

However, the one issue I saw that needs to be cleaned up was dribble penetration. UTA was getting far too many open driving lanes and was converting them at the rim. The Mavericks had 26 points in the paint on the day, and I think if OSU rotates a little better on defense, even with 18 turnovers, this is a double digit win.

The Cowboys definitely have some areas for improvement, but there were a lot of things I liked from this young team in their season opener. Excited to see them on the floor again tomorrow in Stillwater.

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