Was looking at the OSU resume’, and found that they went 9-9 in conference and have the #1 kenpom offense, but their best conference win was @WVU, and then went 2-11 against the other Big 12 tourny teams (Kansas, WVU, ISU, KSU, Baylor). So their numbers are a bit inflated against teams like TCU and Texas Tech.
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We can score 100 on these guys if we’re clicking
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This isn’t the worst matchup in the world. They play into a lot of our strengths and I fully believe we’ll be able to exploit their weaknesses with our staff having all week to prepare. Being scheduled on Friday was big for us.
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Game is at 12:15pm EST Friday. We’re the first game
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Of course I’m on a 1:30 EST flight that day. It never fails. Fun fact though, Michigan is 3-0 in tournament games that I’ve flown during!
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I think this will be a high scoring game (duh). Our defense has been better the second half of conference play.
They’re a perimeter oriented team, with three perimeter players as their leading scorers at 19ppg, 17.4 and 13.3. Not a lot inside. I think this helps us as our interior defense is our weakness.
They’re a good team, but they give up a lot of points against good teams. Only time they’ve held a ranked opponent (and we’re playing like a top 20 team right now) under 75 points this season was when Baylor scored 61 against them in a 61-57 loss. In their last three games, they’ve given up 86 @Iowa St, 90 against Kansas and then 92 against Iowa St. Granted, those are three very good teams but we’ve got a great offense. They’ve also scored 80+ in their last 6 games. They are riding a 3 game losing streak while we’re on a 5 game losing streak. They will be more rested than us, having lost their opening game in the Big 12 tourney. Glad we’re playing on a Friday.
What time would our game be on Sunday?
OKSt is 1-9 vs top 25 teams. We’re 4-2.
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I worry only if their perimeter guys are dribble drivers.
Is our interior defense the weakness? I think it’s actually the perimeter defense that’s the weakness. Michigan has handled both purdues and wisconsins post oriented offenses and struggled mightily against Minnesotas guard oriented offense recently.
I do think Michigan is much better than ok state but I hate this matchup because I’m not sure Michigan can stop their offense. If Michigan has an off night on offense tthey might be in big trouble. Whereas I think Michigan could get away with a off shooting day against a more defensive or interior oriented offensive team.
I’d say the biggest weakness is the strength of our bigs. They can just get overpowered in the post. But we mitigate it by trapping, jumping passing lanes, denying post entries with guards etc. I think our perimeter D had been very good. Minnesota got to the rim a bit, but I mean that’s their whole thing. Very quick athletic guards with minimal skill/awareness
To me, this is a lot like Tennessee in 2011 and VCU in 2013. A lot of anxiety coming from the fan base because the opponent is largely unknown. I think we win comfortably.
Difference between those teams and Oklahoma St is that VcU/Tennessee depended quite a bit on creating turnovers. JB teams value the ball, so all offense for VCU/Tennessee had to come in half court, where those teams struggled. I don’t know if the Cowboys depend on turnovers or not though. If so, I’ll feel a little more comfortable. But Okie St has some good shooters, looking at their roster, so they seem a bit more diverse when it comes to offensive production. They don’t defend, so as long as we shoot decently, we should have a good chance to win.
Yeah man, their D is absolute garbage, but their ability to force turnovers (I think around 20% of possessions I recall correctly from Dylan’s post) is somewhat propping up their already dismal defensive metrics. We haven’t seen D this bad too often this year.
They have a PG who looks to dribble drive and several shooters–An athletic forward who crashes the boards.
Think Cory wasn’t comparing OSU to VCU/TENN in style, just the feeling of anxiety amongst the fan base.
They’re a solid team to be sure, but I think Beilein with four days prep gets this one done. Barring an offensive catastrophe, I think we pull out a close one in 82-76 ish.
Ah, Tennessee. Good times. That was the Air Stu game!
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I say good luck to Ok St trying to stop a Beilein offense when you’re already terrible on D. I think it gets lost in the shuffle in the national media (definitely not here) that we didn’t even shoot that well in the BTT. It was our 2 pt offense that carried us, and I think Beilein will find ways to kill Ok St for easy buckets.
I also think for those worried they’re similar to Minny, that we looked the most tired in that game. I think we blow out Minny by 15-20+ on a neutral court in normal circumstances.
Thing that worries me the most is they have multiple shooters. It’s the “if they get hot from three” worrying me the most versus the guard’s ability to get into the paint.
And this is a concern for just about any team with decent shooters. I agree that JB (and Derrick “MVP” Walton) is going to make sure we score points, and as much as our defense is mediocre/just coming on, OSU’s is really pretty terrible. So, two elite offenses, with our defense being the tiebreaker (lolol cant believe I’m saying that), leaves us with some room for error/room for them to hit some tough shots.
I agree that we looked gassed against Minnesota, but still think things are most likely to go south for us if we cant stay in front of anybody. Sounds like Juwan Evans has been playing great, but I wouldn’t bet against DWalt winning any head-to-head PG matchup; dude is playing possessed and with extreme confidence.
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On top of the defense being the tie-breaker, I would actually be curious how both teams stack up the last 14 games of the season. Both teams ended the year well, with obviously us ending it better.
I know their D is terrible, and was the last 3 games, but wonder if they improved as the year went on like us. We’re definitely not 69 in the country over the last 14 games as we all know.
My man! and Darius Morris was so smooth!
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Yes, a great play all around. Great job by Morris jumping in front of the pass, drawing the defender, the behind the back pass was perfectly in stride and then Stu’s elevation. Stu didn’t just sneak that over the front of the rim, he threw it down!
OK, sorry about the extended trip down memory lane, everyone!
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