By Dustin Ragusa
Oklahoma State recorded its second loss of the season, and second loss in Big 12 play, this past Sunday in Austin. The Pokes held a 5-point lead at halftime, but the Longhorns went on a 17-0 early in the second half, and though OSU fought its way back, it wasn’t enough as the Cowboys fell 77-74.
PFB’s Marshall Scott gave his five thoughts shortly after the game, and for my post today I wanted to dive a little deeper into some of these with a film review.
Avery Anderson
Anderson replaced Ferron Flavors in the starting lineup against Texas. The young Cowboy guard struggled against TCU in the scoring department, going 1-for-4, with most of his misses coming at the rim on looks he should’ve finished. However, he made his presence felt on defense as he grabbed three steals and played great on the ball.
The Pokes have been struggling from 3-point range as a team, and the substitution of Flavors for Anderson shows that until the Cowboys prove they can hit it from distance, head coach Mike Boynton’s going to shake things up and play to his team’s strengths. Well, Anderson took advantage of this opportunity on both ends of the floor, scoring 11 points (4-for-8 FG, 1-for-2 3FG, 2-for-3 FT), grabbing 6 rebounds, dishing out an assist and recording three steals for the second straight game.
On offense, he did a good job of getting out and running in transition. You see below he attacks the paint on the break as he sees none of UT’s big men are back to protect the basket.
In OSU’s half-court offense, Anderson tried to get into the paint when he had the ball, using screens from guys like Kalib Boone to his advantage. Below you’ll see a tough finish inside.
Next, you’ll see Anderson with 6-foot-11 Texas forward Kai Jones switched onto him. He knows he can blow by Jones with his quickness and get into the lane, and he does just that.
On the other end of the floor, Anderson is an extremely aggressive on ball defender. Sometimes, he can get caught out of position because this, but more times than not he is causing his man to get out of rhythm, which disrupts the opponent’s offensive set. His aggressiveness isn’t just related to on-ball defense either, as you see the 6-3 Anderson fight with 6-9 Royce Hamm Jr. for the rebound in the following clip.
His defensive tenacity also leads to turnovers. As I mentioned above this was his second game in a row with three steals. Being able to convert these turnovers to points on the other end is a huge boost for the Cowboys.
Additionally, out of the six players in this game who had a usage percentage (percentage of team plays that used a player while they were on the floor) above 13%, he was one of only two who didn’t record a turnover (UT’s Matt Coleman III was the other). If Anderson can continue to play like this, Boynton might have to keep him in the starting rotation.
Defensive Rebounding
Coach Boynton mentioned defensive rebounding as one of the major issues against the Longhorns.
“Our lack of being able to defensive rebound [hurt us], and we didn’t do a great job in transition defense," he said. “A one-possession game where the other team gets 13 more shots is going to be hard to win.”
Texas had 15 offensive rebounds and 18 second chance points against Oklahoma State. To put that in perspective, 15 offensive rebounds per game is tied for the 11th highest team average in the nation, and the Longhorns average 11.8 per game. If the Pokes are going to win in conference play, they can’t allow teams to dominate the glass like this. There were too many occasions, like the one below, where the Cowboys did a poor job of boxing out (leading to UT free throws).
Allowing your opponent extra possessions like this over and over throughout the course of the game is not a recipe for success at any level of basketball. Below you’ll see another example of the Cowboys not getting a body on a UT player, resulting in an easy bucket for the Longhorns.
With the Pokes not having a lot of big bodies down low, rebounding is going to be an issue, but they have to do a better job of boxing out and make it as difficult as possible for their opponents to get offensive boards.
Stopping Big Runs
After allowing TCU to go on a 9-0 run and win the game last Wednesday, the Cowboys relinquished their halftime lead to UT by allowing a 17-0 run in the second half. Here were the OSU offensive possessions during that near four minute stretch:
- Missed layup
- Turnover
- Missed jumper
- Turnover
- Turnover
- Missed layup
- Turnover
Oklahoma State then ended the run on a Cade Cunningham 3-pointer. The Cowboys were attacking inside with Cunningham and Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe, but they weren’t finishing. In addition, there were some very sloppy turnovers during that stretch. On the defensive side, the Pokes weren’t playing terrible perimeter defense, but after going 3-for-16 from distance in the first half, the Longhorns started to heat up and went 4-for-4 during this run.
Even though the Cowboys were able to claw back and give themselves a chance to win down the stretch, they can’t allow runs like this during Big 12 play. Scoring runs are going to happen in college basketball, but if they allow the upper-tier team’s in the Big 12 to score 17 answered, the Cowboys are going to have a tough time winning games.
Second Half Cade
In his two Big 12 games, Cade is averaging 4.5 points in the first half and 16.5 points in the second half. As I mentioned in the section above, he was the one who put a stop to the UT run with the 3-pointer shown below. His ability to create space with his step back crossover allows him to get a lot of open looks all over the floor.
Here you see Cunningham set a screen on the 6-2 Coleman who is guarding Isaac Likekele. This causes a switch, and Cunningham gets the ball in the short corner. He’s able to use his size and strength to back Coleman down toward the paint. When the help defense comes, he spins away from it toward the baseline and hits the jumper over the smaller Coleman.
Lastly, you see him use his strength again, this time on 6-9, 205-pound Greg Brown.
You would love for Cunningham to get going earlier than he has been these past two games, but once he gets cooking it is impressive to watch. I’m excited to see what he can do in conference play, and hopefully he can get himself in rhythm offensively a little earlier in the Cowboys next matchup.
