By Dustin Ragusa
Oklahoma State secured its first Big 12 win of the season this past weekend by beating Texas Tech 82-77 in overtime. The Cowboys played a solid game on both ends of the floor, but for this post I wanted to focus on the offensive end.
According to BasketballReference.com, "usage percentage is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor." Through OSU's first two conference games, here are the average usage percentages for Bryce Williams, Cade Cunningham and Isaac Likekele:
- Williams: 10.1%
- Cunningham: 36.0%
- Likekele: 12.8%
As you can see, Cunningham had a high usage percentage during the matchups with TCU and Texas. Now, let's take a look at the average player efficiency (PTS + REB + AST + STL + BLK â Missed FG â Missed FT - TO) for these three guys over the course of those two games:
- Williams: 7.5
- Cunningham: 13.5
- Likekele: 16.5
Now, in the most recent matchup with the Red Raiders, we saw coach Mike Boynton's squad make a more concerted effort to balance the usage percentages between these three players. This started with inserting Williams into the starting lineup, which Boynton talked about after the game.
"I think it was on Christmas morning I decided to give myself a Christmas gift," Boynton said. "The only thing I gave myself for Christmas this year. I thought about it for days after the Texas game and obviously we've got good players, but he's doing things that we just don't have. I've said this before, he's our most complete guard. Cade is our best player. Ice is our leader. Avery [Anderson] may be the most shifty, but Bryce has kind of everything together: athleticism, ability to defend, make plays off the bounce, make 3s. To have a guy like that be available to you, we've got to be able to continue to put him in better positions, and that was a pretty strong focus of mine going into the break."
In addition, Boynton talked about wanting Ice to be more aggressive on the offensive end.
âI told him if weâre gonna have a chance to be successful, heâs got to be more aggressive. He doesnât have to make more shots, necessarily. I think if heâs more aggressive, he will make more shots, but itâs the way he approaches both ends of the court, the vocal-ness he has because he knows exactly what I want.â
[PistolsFiringBlog.com]
This change in scheme led to the following usage percentages against TTU:
- Williams: 15.3%
- Cunningham: 23.9%
- Likekele: 24.5%
As you can see, this is a decline for Cunningham and increases for both Ice and Williams, leading to a much more balanced offensive attack. In turn the efficiency ratings for each player improved, as shown below:
- Williams: 19.0
- Cunningham: 16.0
- Likekele: 19.0
You could also tell that Boynton was trying to get the Cowboys out of isolation and into more of a flowing, motion offense. They were spacing the floor, passing, cutting and screening to get open looks. This is evident in the 14 assists they had against the Red Raiders as well, after only averaging 12.9 on the season heading into this game and 10 in conference play.
Below you'll see Ice bring the ball up the court, the Pokes get into their offense and then Williams makes the nice pass to Kalib Boone for the bucket.
Here again we see Ice bringing the ball up the floor, and the Cowboys running their offense to get a good look for Rondel Walker.
In addition, Boynton displayed how he can create good looks for Cunningham off the ball, as youâll see in the following clip.
However, youâre not taking all of the ball handling duties away from Cunningham, as heâs shown in recent games he excels in the pick and roll. Below youâll see Cunningham and Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe in a PNR situation that results in a bucket for OSU.
When the Cowboysâ offense stalled in the second half, Boynton felt comfortable allowing Cunningham to isolate and get a bucket to stop the opponentâs momentum, as youâll see in the following video.
I really liked what I saw from the Cowboys on the offensive end of the floor against the Red Raiders. There will still some long dry spells which you would like to limit, but overall I thought this was the best they have looked offensively in the past few games.