Cade Cunningham highlights and game winner vs Arkansas – YouTube
I looked at the schedule wrong. O State plays at TCU tomorrow night instead of playing doormat Iowa State…which is a significant difference.
TCU while being the No. 8 seed in the Big 12 currently is a nice team coached by Jaime Dixon and are still actually on the bubble for an NCAA berth if they can pull some wins together coming down the stretch of the Big 12 season.
Texas high school basketball is awesome. Just look at the AP Poll this week with Baylor, Houston, Texas, and Texas Tech all ranked in the top thirteen teams in the country. Texas high school basketball is becomong what Texas high school football has been for all of my life.
O State didn’t quite crack the AP Top 25 Poll yesterday, but with a good win at TCU tonight this can be rectified given the Cowboys host Texas on Saturday in what should give Mike Boynton’s club an opportunity to make a move in the poll.
O State has a good team with a great deal of overall team quickness. Fans in this state will get a special double dose of Bedlam because of Covid resheduling as the Bedlam games will be played on March 25th and March 27th… the first in Stillwater, then the second game in Norman. That’s going to be some intense basketball played with tournament-like pressure. I think this will be good for both teams in preparing them for March Madness.
This will be good for Thunder fans as well given where the Thunder will be record wise in late March. Truth is…the Thunder are the third tier storyline in Oklahoma hoops-wise this season. These games will give Thunder fans the memory of what relevant basketball games look like.
Cade finally got back on the floor after missing several games due to Covid protocol. In Saturday’s big win over Arkansas in the Big 12-SEC Challenge it took Cade a half literally to get his legs back under him, but once he did he came up clutch for O State down the stretch run making a sequence of big plays which propelled the Cowboys to 11-4 overall.
That’s that little bit of selfishness Mike Boynton needs to see Cade flash more often. When you’re the big dog, don’t feel like that’s a bad thing. Let it flow.
Look at Cade’s body and then look at the bodies of both OKC Thunder rookies this season…. Little Poku and Theo Maledon. No comparison. They both look malnourished compared to Cade. Cade body-wise is ready to go.
In fact..from that standpoint I’d put Cade ahead of both Shai and Darius Bazely as well. Sam Presti needs to start feeding his players. They looked like little kids compared to all of those muscled Rockets last night. Minus of course…Lu Dort and Kenrich, who by the way is a former TCU Horn Frog.
Plus, Cade is smart, humble, and unfailingly too unselfish. But on Saturday he flexed his alpha a little more down the stretch when his team needed every one of his late game baskets to beat Arkansas.
I’m marking that down in my Cade Cunningham Journal. ‘Cade starting to show alpha a little more.’ But in fairness to Cade…he did that in both of the road wins over Marquette and Wichita State earlier in the season.
Relatively big game for O State tonight if they want to separate from TCU in the BIg 12 standings.
Be sure and watch Rondel Walker when you watch O State as play. This kid has a game and a great set of wheels. He was the best high school player in Oklahoma City last season and is going to make his mark at O State. Just like former John Marshall Bear Joe Atkinson did back in the day.
Know who coached Joe at John Marshall…Blake Griffin’s father Tommy Griffin. Those were the days for John Marshall hoops. 31-0 in 1995 with all five starters getting a scholarship. Didn’t lose a game. Joe was the stud and went to be a good player for Coach Sutton at O State.
If O State can take care of TCU it sets the stage for them to have a breakout game on Saturday hosting Texas. BTW…Texas hosts Baylor tonight in the national spotlight game.
In closing, Sam Presti–start feeding your players and get them in the weight room.