UK Basketball Preview – Know Your Enemy: Oklahoma Sooners
By Paul Jordan
GAME 3
OKLAHOMA SOONERS (3-0)
11/22/2010 5:30 PM
LaHaina Civic Center – Maui, HI
TV – ESPN2
SERIES HISTORY
Kentucky leads 2-0
LAST MEETING
3/1/1987: Kentucky 75 Oklahoma 74
Aloha! Welcome to the Maui Invitational Tournament and it’s insane game start time. Might want to knock off work an hour early tommorow (I am) to get home and catch the 5:30PM tipoff. It’s hard to believe we have not faced the Sooners in basketball in 22 years. But alas, that is what the stat book tells me. So for the second straight game, Kentucky gets to face a 3-0 team. So how good are the Sooners?
The Sooners are off to a 3-0 start, but the list of victims has been less than impressive (Coppin State, North Carolina Central, and Texas Southern) but the Sooner have won two of the games by at least 20 points. They did have some trouble versus North Carolina Central and won the game by just 8 points. The Sooners were not a very good team last season, losing 15 of their last 20 games to finish 13-18, so this should be a team Kentucky can handle fairly easily tomorrow night before advancing to a couple of real tests later in the tourney.
THE STARTERS
#2 – G-STEVEN PLEDGER SO-6’4-206
16.7 ppg, 3.7 apg, 3.3 rpg
#34 – G – CADE DAVIS SR 6’5-206
12.7 ppg, 2.0 apg, 4.7 rpg
#4 – F – ANDREW FITZGERALD SO 6’8 – 237
15.3 ppg, 6/7 rpg
#21 – G/F – CAMERON CLARK FR 6’6 – 190
8 ppg, 6 rpg, 0.3 apg
#55 – F – NICK THOMPSON JR 6’9 – 212
6.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 5.0 apg
THE BACKCOURT
Sophomore guard Steven Pledger brings a lot to the table. He has good size, is a good scorer, and generally has a pretty good overall statline. He is also a pretty solid defender, with about 1.7 steals a game. All of that looks pretty good on the surface until you did a little deeper and see that he is really not that accurate of a shot, hitting just 37.5% of his shots and 32.0% of his treys. So he likes to shoot the ball … a lot. On average he throw up about 8 trey attempts a game. And he also has a tendency to turn the ball over. Most of his scoring has been against lower echelon teams thus far. We will see how he fares against a team with length like Kentucky. Cade Davis brings senior leadership and a pretty good 3-point stroke to the backcourt. Interesting stat is that he shoots the three better (42.1%) than his overall FG percentage (38.5%). He can get hot from beyond the line as evidenced by his 6-10 performance from threes his last game. He does a pretty good job of getting in and getting rebounds for a guard, but he is not a huge defensive threat. Freshman guard Calvin Newell has been playing well coming off the bench, averaging 9.3 points and 2.3 boards a game. He is also very quick defensively and is hitting 36.4% of his 3-pointers.
THE FRONTCOURT
Andrew Fitzgerald is the prototypical forward in the paint, grabbing all the rebounds and never venturing more than 10 feet or so from the basket. Fitzgerald is hitting 54.8% of his shots and is a pretty good rebounder and is equally adept rebounding at both ends of the court. On the negative side of the ledger, Fitzgerald’s ball handling skills are almost non-existent and he is prone to getting into foul trouble with 4 fouls in his last two games. Cameron Clark comes to the Sooners as the 32nd best recruit of the 2010 class and he displayed his potential by getting a double double in his very first game. Clark has the versatility to play either the backcourt or frontcourt positions and it is rare to find a player that is averaging both 6 rebounds a game and hitting 50% of his three pointers. Nick Thompson is an interesting player.. He’s 6’9, yet averages 5 assists a game and is a pretty aggressive rebounder. While he can handle the ball, he is not an effective scorer and is almost absent on the offensive boards. He recently suffered through a 2-11 shooting night versus NC Central, and even though Kentucky is not a huge frontcourt team, he should struggle with Kentucky’s length. 6’7 Junior Barry Honore’ will chew some minutes in the post position, but is averaging just 2 points and 2 rebounds a game. Tyler Neal has only played in two games, for just 16 minutes, but he has a perfect statline from the field, line, and from 3-pointers. In his two games, he is averaging 5.5 points and 2.5 boards. Not bad for 8 minutes a game.
OUTLOOK
To be honest, Kentucky should not have a problem with the Sooners. The Sooners are a team that is pretty young, is not especially big, and they are not very deep. Only 7 players have played in all three games and play in more than 10 minutes a game. If Kentucky can jump on them early and apply the pressure as they did versus Portland, this one could be over early.
Pledger and Fitzgerald are their best players and they have pretty bad matchups versus the Wildcats. The Sooners have played well as a team thus far and if Kentucky overlooks them, they can be a team that can hang around for the game. Kentucky needs to have the same frame of mind they did versus Portland. UK was not shooting the ball that well yet shuts them down defensively and pulled out to a 15-0 lead. I have to admit, with Liggins and Mil
ler starting, this could be the best defensive team since the days of Tubby.
All in all, it should be a pretty easy game for Kentucky. Even if one of the starters is not scoring, Doron Lamb has proven to be instant offense off the bench. Today should be another good game to see if Harrellson/Vargas can step up and improve their game. I’d like to see 15 points and 15 rebounds today combined. I know I’m asking for a lot, but it’s time to get some consistency in the post. Can Oklahoma win? Sure. I am not completely dismissing the possibility of a close game, but I think Kentucky should win 81-63.
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