PFB+ Film Study: A Look at OSU's Victory over TTU

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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 − Missed FG − 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.

“I told him if we’re gonna have a chance to be successful, he’s got to be more aggressive. He doesn’t have to make more shots, necessarily. I think if he’s more aggressive, he will make more shots, but it’s the way he approaches both ends of the court, the vocal-ness he has because he knows exactly what I want.”

[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.

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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.

https://gfycat.com/lastashamedizuthrush

In addition, Boynton displayed how he can create good looks for Cunningham off the ball, as you’ll see in the following clip.

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However, you’re not taking all of the ball handling duties away from Cunningham, as he’s shown in recent games he excels in the pick and roll. Below you’ll see Cunningham and Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe in a PNR situation that results in a bucket for OSU.

https://gfycat.com/essentialgiantcub

When the Cowboys’ offense stalled in the second half, Boynton felt comfortable allowing Cunningham to isolate and get a bucket to stop the opponent’s momentum, as you’ll see in the following video.

https://gfycat.com/lightheartedslightbarasingha

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.

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The coaching adjustments were definitely evident on sunday. Dustin this was really well done.

Boynton has often shown his ability to adjust and make the team better. Will be interesting to see if Boone gets the start tonight, Culver will eat MAMs lunch. I love that our next game is so soon and at home. Great chance to snowball some more momentum.

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Boynton needs to find a solution for preventing scoring droughts. That’s the next improvement I want to see.

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Thank you! I really appreciate that.

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Do you think MAM’s minutes will be cut significantly or just thinking KB gets the start.

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KB has got to keep his cool if he’s going to stay on the floor. Seems like it’s easy to get under his skin.

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The key to beating WV tonight will be to limit free throws. The best match up we have for Culver is Kalib but he is also foul prone which may end up hurting us more than helping. I do not envy Mike with the decisions he is going to have to make today.

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I think I would start MAM for this game. If there’s one thing he’s shown, it’s that he can catch the ball on the perimeter and get to the goal pretty easily. His problem is finishing. If he could just get there and draw a quick foul on Culver that would be huge.

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@dustinragusa24 I’m not sure if you focused on this but can you do an analysis of one our scoring droughts to see what changed?

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I don’t think his minutes will really be cut, I think Boynton is obviously just trying to make a point to Kalib that he has to “earn the start”.

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All teams have scoring droughts and we will continue to have them seeing as we do not have any “offensive oriented players” or true scorers. You look at Tech with McClung and Edwards for example, those guys are proven scorers and shot makers. This team does not have that, just going to have to find the offense and rhythm.

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That makes sense

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I definitely will make sure to hit on that in a future post. I think in this one they just couldn’t get shots to fall and had some sloppy turnovers, which then led to them trying to force things and make it even worse.

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depends on what causes a scoring drought, their own offense or opponents defense

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I’m no @dustinragusa24, but off the top of my head it seems like the droughts came in times that we were rushing things. There was a sequence of like 5 possessions where it seemed like we shot, or turned it over, in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock.

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Also, always open to suggestions on things you guys see game to game that I could write about! And thanks for reading!

Probably won’t have a chance to write about tonight’s but I’ll be back at it next week.

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@dustinragusa24 Following the Thunder this season?

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I might be interesting to track to see if a pattern of the same habits develop each time.

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Oh yeah! They’ve been fun to watch. What about you?

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@dustinragusa24 Who’s your favorite top 4 favorite Thunder players this season?

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