Sooners Win Bedlam Twice at PayCom

A huge day and night of basketball in the state of Oklahoma as the Sooners swept both ends of Bedlam at PayCom Arena during the day, while in Vegas … Wemby reappeared on a twenty minutes limitation night to end the Thunder’s franchise record win streak of sixteen games with a ‘somewhat’ surprising 111-109 win.

Let me do this…for today, I’m only blogging about the Sooner mens’ nice win over previously unbeaten O State in a game the Sooners very much will need for their NCAA Tournament resume come March Madness.

But I also want to thank Anne at PayCom as my arena section sponser, who without me asking… went out of her way to upgrade my seat for free so as I could have more leg space for my right knee, and simultaneously be closer to the OU pep band which rocked yesterday. It’s always a big deal at a college game for MJ to be near the pep band.

What a great atmosphere! Except for some random seats at the top where I refuse to sit….it looked pretty much full from my vantage point near the floor.

OU entered this game 6-3 coming off a bad perfromance at Arizona State and pretty much couldn’t let this game get away is my first take. The Sooners have played some ambitious road venues on the way to that now 7-3 mark…but the performances at both Gonzaga and ArizonaState were not stellar. In those two games… OU looked like a team which had yet to connect itself defensively.

Maybe this crossroads win of sorts will propel the Sooners the right direction as they now have four cupcakes to win before they enter the always choppy ocean of SEC play.

My road map for this OU team is this at the minmum, get better every game, become more connected in the defensive zone, win the four cupcake games to get to 11-3, and then go at the least either 9-9 or 8-10 in SEC regular season play. A 9-9 mark would be preferable for me in that I don’t think the SEC as a whole in this SEC season of hoops is going to be as strong and deep a basketball conference as it was a year ago. I don’t see Florida, Auburn, Alabama, and Ole Miss as strong as they were last season.

OU’s guard play should be ably manned by the three guys at the presser in this order 1 Nigel Pack (best scorer), 2 Xavier Brown (best pure point guard), and 3 sophomore Dayton Forsythe 3, high energy hydrid guard coming off the bench who in essence is a Swiss army knife player who does whatever Porter needs during any given game. MJ loves this kid from tiny Dale, Oklahoma. Hoosiers all the way.

At forward I’m begiing to like what I’m seeing with the play of Tae Davis (Notre Dame), Derrion Reid (Alabama), Jadon Jones (Long Beach State), Kuol Atak (stretch big redshirt freshman). Plus, throw former Juco Player of the Year, Kansas Jayhawk Jeff Nwanko in there as well.

As Porter said in the presser…Jadon hit three threes right off the bat once he entered so Jeff’s minutes were shrunk a bit. But to Jeff’s credit, when he did enter the game in the second half he made several heady, clutch/smart plays when the game was hanging in the balance.

But to me the key for this Sooner hoops season as to the final goal of just making the NCAA Tournament field as opposed to being the type of team which could advance to the Sweet 16…lies with Porter’s two bigs. Those being senior Mo Wague (Alabama), and freshman Kai Rogers. These two need to continue to evolve into what I call dual role centers who can not just rebound and give rim protection, but run the pick and roll, make their free throws, and stay out of foul trouble. BUT MOST OF ALL…PLAY HEADY/SMART BASKETBALL.

My feel is if these two guys get to where Porter feels comfortable playing Kai 16 minutes on the road in an SEC game or a neutral site in either the SEC or NCAA tournament…this OU team could evolve into a sneaky dangerous team in March.

As far as Bedlam staying at PayCom… based on what I saw yesterday in the first game…I would for sure say keep it at the home of the Thunder. But I will also let me add this in closing…I thought the O State crowd was great in the first game, but extremely weak in the second game for the women as they left the arena and didn’t return to see them play Jennie’s No. 9 ranked Sooners.

I thought it was weak in a week in which new O State football coach Eric Morris was talking about renewing Bedlam football. If you want to play good teams…then stay with them when they need you most.

Anyway…congrats to all the players from both teams who played hard in a great setting for college basketball.

Mike J