OU rode Trae Young’s 27 point, 9 rebound, 10 assist night to a 109-89 win over rival Oklahoma State in Norman on Wednesday night. Fellow true frosh swingman Brady Manek led the Sooners in scoring with a career best 28 point night. All told, it was a night when OU’s overall team balance showed itself as Young while clearly being the star of this team–is seeing more and more support from his teammates every game.
The game was a sellout and the rest of the home slate for conference play is either already sold out or will be by the respective game days. Which is a good thing because this team deserves to get this kind of crowd support.
Young is clearly the star of this team, but Lon Kruger has a nice overall team with multiple pieces. Manek, a local kid from Harrah, has been solid from Game 1. Then there’s Christian James, Cam McGusty, and quite frankly an overall roster with nice balance and depth all the way through the 11th or 12th man in the rotation. If you look at OU’s roster, there’s only one senior among the top twelve players. So–even if Trae Young decides he can’t turn down being a top five pick in this summer’s NBA draft…Lon Kruger has done a good job of reloading his program after the departures of Buddy Hield, Isiah Cousins, Ryan Spangler, and Jordan Woodward from the Final Four team. In case you haven’t noticed…Lon Kruger knows what he’s doing.
OU will take it’s No. 7 national ranking to Morgantown this Saturday evening to play the No. 5 West Virginia Mountaineers in what should be an extremely interesting game. There will be no easy wins moving forward for the Sooners or any Big 12 team for that matter. This conference is a death knell. Just look at the coaches in this conference…all big time except O State’s Mike Boynton who’s in his first season ever of head coaching at the DI level. Bill Self, Bob Huggins, Lon Krueger, Jaime Dixon, etc. You better bring your team ready to play every night if you expect to be competitive.
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On the Thunder front, the Thunder took care of business and routed the LA Lakers by a count of 133-96. Rookie Terrance Ferguson got the start in place of sitting Andre Roberson and had a 24 point night while hitting six threes. Daniel Hamilton had some nice minutes as well. Good for both of them.
Hard to glean much from this game because the Lakers are so bad, but it’s a win and the main thought I take from this game in LA is if Sam Presti is in all the way with the notion of going with Paul George past the trade deadline without a contract extension of some sort.
Very interesting situation. Westbrook says winning the championship will be a sales pitch enough in itself. Right now–I would calibrate this team’s chances of winning four playoff series and sixteen playoff games without home court advantage as the No. 5 seed at somewhere around maybe 1-2% at best. So–what I’m saying here–is at what juncture in this does Presti make sure and get something for Paul George so as he didn’t trade Oladipo and Sabonis , whom he got for Serge Ibaka, for nothing except one season of play and the double hit of another team in the West moving the Thunder down a notch in food chain peg.
Presti got nothing for Durant. Not even a draft pick. He made a great trade for Ibaka in getting Oladipo and Sabonis, but if Paul George walks for nothing— I don’t know, buddy. What happened to sustainability?
Anyway, nice to see Ferguson have a nice game. Abrines was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t have any volume on while watching the second half of the game… so I’m to assume he was hurt and nursing another minor injury of some sort or else Presti and Donovan finally realized maybe the dude on the rogue blog isn’t completely crazy and might know something.
The Thunder in Staples again tonight–only this time against the Clippers. I think I’ll be bold and go with Matt Pinto on the audio and TNT on the video. Others can listen to the Alvin the Chipmunk and Bullwinkle Show if so inclined.