Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 79-63 Win Over Austin Peay

BOX SCORE

Oklahoma State played one of its least-impressive games of the year but was still able to escape with a 16-point win over Austin Peay on Wednesday night in GIA. Jeffrey Carroll led the Pokes with 17 points, and Tavarius Shine and Lindy Waters tossed in 12 each while Mitchell Solomon collected nine boards.

The Cowboys shot 49 percent from the field, including 41 percent from 3-point range as six different players hit at least one 3-pointer and four of them hit at least two. Despite the shared wealth, Oklahoma State was lousy at times offensively and a little uninspired at times on defense. In other words, they looked like they were playing the 299th-ranked team on KenPom.com in front of 925 people (which they were).

Five thoughts. Let’s go.

1. Ball movement 3s

OSU’s ball movement was … better on Wednesday. Mike Boynton has said he wants OSU to run a little bit more, and they did post 18 fast break points against the Govs, but the half-court offense had really nice flashes (see below).

It’s still a little too let’s-take-the-air-out-of-the-ball-y for me, but I can get behind Lindy going back door and Averette kicks to Crime Dog.

2. Lack of intensity on defense

Peay out-rebounded OSU on the offensive glass, had 26 points in the paint and 11 second-chance points, and all of it was a result of OSU not playing with the defensive intensity we’ve become accustomed to. OSU’s defensive four factors numbers look like this on the season.

Effective FG%: 44 percent
Turnover %: 21 pecent
Off. Rebounding %: 24 percent

On Wednesday, they looked like this.

Effective FG%: 43 percent
Turnover %: 24 pecent
Off. Rebounding %: 33 percent

The point is that OSU put up similar or worse defensive numbers compared to the rest of its season against a pretty poor Austin Peay team. Again, family, friends and my parents were in attendance, but they’ll have to get more out of their defense over the next few months.

3. Is Dizzy … Like … Good?

Dizzy had 11 more points on 3-of-5 shooting from 3-point range which puts him at 23-of-41 on the season from deep. I’ll reserve full judgement until Kansas, WVU and OU come to town, but for now he’s the James Washington of hoops — OSU’s most reliable deep threat.

Dizzy with 3️⃣!!! #LetsWork pic.twitter.com/J9dYqtpKqW

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) November 30, 2017

4. Terrible turnovers

Whoo boy, that second half was sloppy. Oklahoma State turned it over on nearly one-third of its possessions in the final 20 minutes, and most of them were careless, ridiculous errors. This goes back to the intensity and the fact that the newness of the season has worn off and OSU is entering the grind against bad teams, but Mike Boynton can’t be happy with that number.

5. Scoring on Offensive boards

I’ve been impressed with OSU’s offensive rebounding game so far this season, and specifically how easily they’ve been able to score off of it. They turned 10 offensive rebounds into 16 points on Wednesday. Tavarius Shine, who had 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 3 offensive boards said it became a focal point.

“We came out, we weren’t focused,” Shine told Fox Sports’ Allison Gappa “I was trying to stay off the 3-point line. Coach said we were shooting too many 3s so I was thinking the best way for me to get some points to get us going was to crash the glass as hard as possible. So that’s what I did.”

Other Notes

• Love these “equality” warm-up shirts. Would wear.

• I also love the turquoise uniforms, but is Oklahoma State maybe overplaying them a little bit? Three times in seven games? Seems like a lot.

• Great color on color matchup tonight, and the “Govs” on Austin Peay’s uniforms is very solid. I approve.

• Davon Dillard looks like he might need to run himself into playing shape. He certainly doesn’t look as athletic as he did this time last year.

• I wish OSU used Crime Dog more on high screens. I think he could be really effective there.

• I wish I loved my kids as much as Bryndon Manzer loves the way Mitchell Solomon plays defense.

• While I noted above that I’ve enjoyed the offensive rebounding thus far, I’m not sure it’s going to fly in the Big 12. OSU is going to have to finish better. Going 11-of-18 on layups is not going to beat Texas or TCU.

• Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much I love watching Clip shoot?

.@J30Carroll ? pic.twitter.com/jy3Sw8g1Zk

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) November 30, 2017

• Was that a Solomon post move?? Yes, yes it was!