Pregaming – OU

Teams: Oklahoma State (18-11, 6-9) vs. Oklahoma (12-17, 4-11)

For entertainment purposes
OSU takes on OU in the regular season finale at 3 PM on the Big 12 Network as well as ESPN3. OSU bumped themselves up to #55 in the RPI (does that seem really high to anyone else?) while OU sits at #134.

Behind enemy lines
Crimson and Cream Machine

Homework
OU is reeling, having lost eight straight and coming off a 26-point blowout in Lubbock on Wednesday night. The one thing OSU has going for them is that I think OU just wants the season to be over whereas OSU is still clinging to a .000000001% chance that they could make the tournament.

Of course the Cowboys also haven’t won in Norman since 2004 and home teams in conference games this year are 173-32 so that doesn’t exactly scream “huge Bedlam win to end the season!” at me.

The crowd today will belie what’s at stake for the Pokes. The seniors have never walked out of Lloyd Noble winners and a big one today would give them three straight headed to Kansas City. I realize no team has even won four games to take the Big 12 tourney crown and I realize this OSU team won’t be the first to do it, but still, three straight is three straight and you know it’ll make all of us start saying, “you know if Keiton gets really hot and Markel goes off and….and….”

But that’s why we do this thing, right? For the once-in-a-hundred years chance that a Bedlam W could propel OSU towards back-to-back-to-back-to-back wins in the Sprint Center and on to the Dance.

What I’m worried about
I think “OSU hasn’t won a conference road game since February 17, 2010 in Ames” qualifies as something that concerns me about this one. That and the fact that that the world has to look at Cade Davis for 120 more minutes.

Two random stats that (probably) only interest me:
Markel Brown, the 11th tallest guy on the team (12th if you count Coach Pierre), has nearly twice as many blocks as anyone else. He had more than nine guys on Tuesday against Baylor alone.

OU has the worst scoring margin in the Big 12, they average 3 fewer points a game than their opponents.

Video to get you ready
Because we haven’t posted it all year…oh, and for the record, I love that it came after the shot clock buzzed, and how about Kelvin running a 1.4 20 to the middle of the floor?