Football
Key Takeaway: Lindy Waters Impresses in OSU Exhibition
A deep dive into Lindy’s 15-point afternoon.
Oklahoma State won Sunday’s exhibition game against Ouachita Baptist pretty comfortably 80-59. Although this one doesn’t count toward their final record, there were some positive and negative takeaways for the Cowboys in their first televised contest of the season.
Marshall Scott is bringing a full notebook later on, but I wanted to dive a little deeper into one key takeaway from OSU’s victory over the Tigers … the impressive play of Lindy Waters.
Waters was extremely active from the tip and finished with 15 points, a career high (if this game counted) 9 rebounds and 3 assists. Now, let’s take a look at what all the Norman-product did well today.
Facilitating
The Pokes were without ball handlers Mike Cunningham (injury) and Michael Weathers (suspension) in this one. With the Cowboys lacking guys who could bring the ball down the court and run the offense, Waters stepped up and showed he’s capable of assuming this role for OSU.
He started off by showing his passing skills and had this nice dish to Isaac Likekele for the easy bucket inside. As you can see in the video below, Likekele had inside position on his man and Waters makes a beautiful pass leading the freshman point guard to the basket and putting the ball out of the defender’s reach.
Here again we see him make another nice entry pass, this time to Cam McGriff, after bringing the ball up the court. We saw Lindy assume the primary ball handler role at times last season, but he looked more comfortable in this position today against OBU.
When you consider the youth and inexperience on this Cowboy team, being able to put the ball in a junior’s hands in late game situations will be huge for Mike Boynton and his squad.
Scoring
Waters got to his 15 points in multiple different ways. Obviously, the sharp shooting guard knocked down a couple from deep, off the catch and shoot.
In addition, Lindy Raindrops also showed his ability to create his shot off the bounce as shown below.
As well as moving off the ball. Here freshman Duncan Demuth finds Waters on the cut to the basket for the easy two.
Waters was also able to create second chance points by crashing the offensive boards and overall looked very confident on that end for Oklahoma State.
Defensive Intensity
Waters was really aggressive on defense and did a solid job of denying the ball from his man and getting in passing lanes, which is a key part of Boynton’s defensive philosophy. You can see an example of this aggressiveness in the clip below.
It was great to see Lindy perform well on both ends and continue the solid shooting we’ve seen throughout his career at OSU. He was one of the players I was most excited to watch this season, and this exhibition game didn’t change my thoughts on that. I think his play is going to be a major factor in how successful the Pokes can be this season.
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