It’s Final Four weekend in the world of college basketball, and the Buffs’ season is still alive!
Well, there’s a major caveat to that statement. Colorado won’t be in Indianapolis to battle for a national championship. They won’t even be vying for an NIT title. Instead, they’re headed to Las Vegas to compete in the third-tier College Basketball Crown for the second-straight year.
The Buffs will begin their journey to claim the $500k prize pool by winning it all on Wednesday evening at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, facing the Oklahoma Sooners at 6 p.m. MT.
To help us get ready for this matchup, we turned to our resident Sooners fan here at The Ralphie Report, our founder Jon Woods, to get familiar with the enemy. We asked Jon our most pressing questions about the Sooners ahead of Wednesday’s game. Here are his answers:
1: First off, why did Oklahoma coach Porter Moser get another year after OU’s disappointing season?
Oh man. We’re starting this off with an easy one, huh?
Personally, I think a lot of it had to do with the timing of the AD transition at Oklahoma.
First, new AD Roger Denny saw firsthand what an increased investment in and focus on basketball can do during his time at Illinois. He knows that Porter has been pretty severely underfunded at OU and wants to see what he can do with a bigger budget.
Secondly, it’s kind of a win-win for him. If it works and the team improves, then he still played a big role in turning that around and doesn’t have the associated costs of a coaching change. If it doesn’t, he still gets to make his first major hire and has a lot more time to do it, allowing for a much stronger assessment of the program and landscape.
Lastly, while OU’s nine-game losing streak was as bad as it gets, it’s pretty commendable that Moser was able to get a transfer-heavy team to stay committed to the season and turn things around. OU was playing some of the best ball in the country at the end of the season and was incredibly close to getting a team everyone had left for dead into the tournament.
2: What are OU’s biggest strengths and weaknesses that Colorado fans should know about heading into this matchup?
If we’re looking at how this team has played over the last weeks… the biggest strength is clear – OU is going to score and score a lot. The Sooners ranked 18th nationally in offensive efficiency, averaged nearly 83 points per game and shot the ball well from three, with Nigel Pack leading the SEC in three-point percentage at over 45%. When the shots are falling, OU can bury teams in a hurry.
The flip side is that Oklahoma’s rebounding and defense can be bad to really bad. OU’s defensive efficiency ranked outside the top 300 nationally, which is strange for a Porter Moser team. His teams have typically been pretty good on the defensive side of the ball. The nine-game losing streak was almost entirely a product of defensive breakdowns and getting killed on the glass. The Buffs should feel confident that if they can get the ball inside and create second-chance opportunities, they will get some points.
That said, they’ve been playing great on both sides of the ball lately. OU won eight of its last 11, including wins over a top-15 Vanderbilt, Auburn, Texas on the road and back-to-back SEC Tournament wins. They then got real close to knocking off Arkansas. The team showing up in Vegas is playing with a lot more cohesion than the one that went through that awful losing streak.
3: Which players on this Sooners squad do the Buffs need to watch out for?
Nijel Pack is the headliner. He led OU at 16.5 points per game, shot over 45% from three and became just the 31st player in Division I history to hit 400 career threes. He’s a sixth-year senior who led Miami to a Final Four. He showed in the SEC Tournament he can take over games and will need to be the focus for the Colorado defense
Point guard Xzayvier Brown makes the team go, with over 15 points per game. He’s their best distributor and most reliable on-ball defender.
Tae Davis is the key forward. He’s the most versatile player on the roster at 6-9 and is an excellent rebounder and passer. He had 11 offensive rebounds in one game this year. If Colorado’s defense struggles like it has at times, Davis can have a big game. Keep an eye on Derrion Reid, the former ROLL TIDE five-star who averaged nearly 12 points and had a couple of double-doubles down the stretch.
3. How does Oklahoma typically want to win games stylistically, and how might that clash with Colorado’s fast-pace, offense-first approach?
Moser has always preached that defense creates offense – it’s literally the team’s “thing”, calling them “DCOs.” When OU is winning, they’re getting stops, forcing turnovers and pushing the ball quickly. The problem is, for most of this season, the defense sucked, so OU often had to win shootouts.
If the Buffs want to play fast, that actually might suit OU just fine. Pack and Brown are both comfortable in the open floor, Davis runs well for a forward and Moser wants to play with pace. OU’s not going to try to slow anything down.
The real question is which version of the OU defense shows up. The late-season version that worked makes OU a dangerous matchup because they have the shooting to punish you. The losing-streak version of OU, should they return, could get overwhelmed by Colorado’s pace. I think it comes down to the rebounding battle and turnovers. If it turns into a pure shootout, I’d give the edge to OU because of Pack and the overall shooting, but the Buffs have shown that they can get up for the right game.
Thanks, Jon!
We’re due for an interesting matchup in Vegas. The Sooners have largely kept their roster intact since the end of their conference tournament. Colorado can’t say the same, as they’ve lost three key starters in Isaiah Johnson, Sebastian Rancik and Bangot Dak to the transfer portal in the last week. Because of that, the Buffs are considerable underdogs, with oddsmakers favoring OU around 10 points.
Will the undermanned Buffs be able to pull off the upset to advance to the second round of the college basketball crown? Tune in Wednesday night to find out!
