Oklahoma at Baylor: OU faces major challenge
Oklahoma might need another Herculean performance on Wednesday night in Waco.
The Sooners face No. 2-ranked Baylor, undefeated (9-0) and largely unchallenged, at the Ferrell Center in Waco (8 p.m., ESPN2).
OU (6-2) has the ability to score a memorable upset. The Sooners have three of the Big 12’s five highest-scoring individual games this season, most recently 29 by Umoja Gibson in Saturday’s upset of No. 9 West Virginia.
OU also got 29 points from Brady Manek in the season-opener against UTSA, and got 32 from Austin Reaves in the Sooners’ Big 12-opening win at TCU. According to OU research, the Sooners are the only team in the country with three different players to score 29 or more in a game this season.
“It’s great,” said OU coach Lon Kruger. “Any time you’ve got that depth, if you will, in terms of being able to score, it puts more pressure on the defense. We’ve got a lot of different guys that can score in a lot of different ways. And I think our depth and our versatility will continue to serve us going forward.”
Gibson, a transfer from North Texas, has been good all season (he leads the Big 12 Conference with a .489 percentage from 3-point range and 2.75 treys per game) but may have gotten red hot at the right time: he grew up in Waco wanting to play for Baylor.
He said he’ll try to treat Wednesday’s showdown as just another game, but also acknowledged it is a special game for him, too.
“That’s who everybody roots for back at home, is for Baylor,” Gibson said. “It’s just a blessing to play in front my people at home and especially in my home town city. It don’t get no better than that.”
Kruger said he was happy to see Gibson’s breakout.
“He works as hard as anyone in the country on putting extra time in,” Kruger said, “and when a young guy does that, it’s easy to cheer for him and happy to see him rewarded.
“He loves being in the gym. Literally in the gym more, I’d wager, or as much as anyone in the country.”
The reality is that Oklahoma could get another career effort from Gibson — and maybe one or two others — and it still might not be enough.
The Bears average a Big 12-best 93 points per game, only give up 63 (that ranks third), and lead the Big 12 in rebounding margin (plus-9.4 per game), assists (20.8) and steals (10.1), as well as turnover margin (plus-7.9) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.72 to 1). They also lead the Big 12 by shooting 51.6 percent from the floor and 43.8 percent from 3-point range and average a league-high 11.0 field goals per game from beyond the 3-point circle.
Four Baylor guards — Jared Butler (16.0, third in the Big 12), MaCio Teague (15.9, fourth), Davion Mitchell (12.9) and Adam Flagler (10.9) — all average double-figure scoring, with Flagler coming off the bench (in Big 12 play, Flagler averages 15.7 points per game).
Mitchell (6.67) and Butler (5.78) rank 1-2 in the league in assists per game, and Mitchell (2.67) leads the league in steals while Butler (2.0) ranks third. Also, 6-foot-8 forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua averages 9.9 points and 8.0 rebounds (third in the conference) per game.
Five of Baylor’s six volume shooters are hitting better than 43 percent from 3-point range.
Of course, this Oklahoma team knows what it takes to score a major upset in Waco. Last year’s club came within 61-57 of the No. 1-ranked Bears on Baylor’s campus. OU overcame nearly all of an eight-point deficit in the final 90 seconds before Reaves missed a go-ahead 3 with just four seconds to play.
It’s a big opportunity for the Sooners: they’ve never beaten a top-two team on the road.
It’s also an important game for Oklahoma: up next is a road trip Saturday to No. 6 Kansas.
