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Notebook: Pokes Shoot 50 Percent from 3 in Second Half; Smith, McGriff Staggeringly Efficient

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Oklahoma State shocked me and you and West Virginia and everyone else who watches basketball and saw the size of the egg the Pokes laid at home against Baylor on Tuesday. They beat WVU 88-85 on Saturday in Morgantown to move to 5-7 in the Big 12 on the year. That doesn’t sound all that great, until you remember that 8-10 will probably get them in the NCAA Tournament.

Notebook time — here’s everything I wrote down while watching the Pokes take down the Mountaineers on Saturday afternoon.

• Why does OSU play with more energy away from home than at home? Is it really the crowds? They’ve gotten two great ones the last two weeks and looked like a completely different team than the one that has lost at home to Baylor and TCU.

• Crime Dog’s glasses were tremendous. I hope he keeps them the rest of the year.

• Mitch Solomon leads the country in a. Sketchy calls by incompetent zebras and b. highest dumb fouls-to-GPA ratio in college basketball history.

• Huggins looks like a retired truck driver who hits up McDonald’s coffee with his buddies every morning at 6:50 a.m and has a pantry well-stocked with Pringles and Dr. Pepper.

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• Yes.

• Not sure what OSU can/should do with Dizzy when he’s not hitting. He was 0 for 4 on Saturday and took some truly horrific shots. That makes him 4 for his last 19, dating back to the Arkansas game two weeks ago.

• I love Carroll playing on the interior. His game should have a little more Jevon Carter in it (minus the one-legged fadeaway shots from 18.5 feet). The outside shot is clearly not working, but he’s got a nice array of moves in the paint. Get there more, and leave the bombs to somebody else.

• This was OSU’s fourth win over a ranked opponent this season, tied for the 12th most in school history. The school record for ranked wins is nine by the 2004 team.

• I thought OSU got a lot of calls in the first half and WVU got a lot in the second. Either way, 64 FT attempts in 40 minutes does not make for a great sport.

• Yo.

• McGriff might have gotten a little out of his world in the second half. Still, that 12-point run in the first and his 13 for 13 day from the line were remarkable. He can almost get to the line whenever he wants to because it takes three grown men and two ball boys to get him down.

• Did Shine get a back tattoo while he was out? Related: The announcers casually mentioned that Shine had a broken wrist. A broken wrist?!

• I’m crying.

• Laphonso Ellis said OSU leads Power 5 conferences in points off turnovers. I believe him, because that stat has popped in the last few box scores, but I couldn’t actually find the list.

• Kendall Smith’s has the highest 3-point percentage-to-how his shot looks coming out of his hand ratio in OSU history. Desmond is also up there.

• WVU has their own yelling guy.

• How about OSU hitting four 3-pointers after Jevon Carter made it 78-72 with 3:10 left? Smith, Carroll, Waters, Waters. I definitely said “no!” multiple times during that stretch. OSU moves to 12-1 on the year when taking 20+ 3-pointers and shooting better than 30 percent. ?

• How big was that 10-4 OSU run to start the second half? Game could have gotten out of hand, and the moonshine could have flowed right into the afternoon.

• How much fun is watching Scott Sutton on the bench? Dude is all of us all game.

• This game is why this OSU team can be infuriating. You can bang with No. 19 on the road all afternoon, but you look lost at home against Baylor? I just don’t understand.

• WVU went to a 1-3-1 zone in the second half. Boynton said in his media availability that unless something crazy happened, OSU wouldn’t see anything but man all day. I guess something crazy happened.

• After a season low in free throw percentage against Baylor, OSU notched its third-best percentage of the season in games where the Pokes shoot 25+ free throws.

• Was Boynton’s tie red?

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• OSU was 7 for 14 from 3-point range in the second half. That’ll do, pig.

• I wrote this: “Game flipped on Dizzy’s 49-footer with 5 minutes left.” I was obviously wrong, but it did feel like that was going to be a turning point. WVU immediately went up six with the 4-minute TO closing in.

• In the last two road games, McGriff and Smith have 84 points on 45 shots. Whoo boy.

• Loved this from Fran late: “This is where you’d love to have Jawun Evans.” Oh THIS is where I’d love to have him?

• One of the announcers (I think it was Fran) said, “You know if you go inside they’re going to call it.” He was right. And OSU exploited it with Crime Dog and, to a lesser extent, Solomon. That’s where it felt like Carroll could have shot 19 free throws.

• Fran: “Trae Young could have extended Laphonso’s career a couple years.” ?

• Can’t believe another Big 12 guard had a career high. Stunner.

• As Gottlieb says, Cam is the “after” pic.

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• I did not think OSU was going to out-rebound WVU. They did, 31-28.

• Lindy + Trae Young = new Smart and Forte.

• How about Clip stomping around and not getting back? Again, Scott Sutton is all of us. Also, Boynton has a Gundy-esque nature to himself on the sidelines during games. Never really gets bonkers except for at the officiating. I like that.

Watch Boynton’s reaction here. Exactly how Gundy does it.

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