Cowboys get win in Pac-10 challenge, 79-68

Box Score

Well, it wasn’t pretty but 11-1 is 11-1. OSU struggled through some first half turnovers (9) and shooting woes (38%) to recover nicely in the second against lowly Stanford.

Keiton really set the tone going into the locker room by hitting a nasty fadeaway 3 from the corner with a hand in his face. In fact, Keiton really carried the team the entire night. He took smart shots and really controlled the ball well. I know Ray Penn is technically the point guard but everything feels less…hectic…when Keiton has the ball. I love Penn, I really do, I think he could be dangerous if he figures out to control his body and settle down a little bit. He’s like a waterbug darting around the court all the time, wreaking havoc. He reminds me of Jonny Flynn, except that he’s not as good of a scorer and gets lazy with his passes. Other than that, pure Flynn.

Speaking of Penn, how about the announcers wondering during the second half “if Ray Penn was recruited by Penn”? What?! Where does that rank on the “yep, this game is awful and we’ve officially run out of things to talk about” scale? Has to be up there.

The game wasn’t awful either. My expectations weren’t really that high since Stanford has losses this year to Murray St. and Tulsa and the Cowboys have struggled to find a consistent rhythm. But the second half was actually rather enjoyable to watch.

I thought Ford did a great job in the second half of building and protecting the lead. He rotated the big guys (Olukemi, Williams, and Moses) well and put the game in the hands of his scorers (Page and Penn).

A few other notes:

• The Penn, Sidorakis, Page, Moses, Williams lineup feels really really small. It’s intriguing though because you’re running a group out there that’s most likely faster and more athletic than the 5 they’re going against. I liked it. I’d even like to see Markel instead of Williams to see if they could run even more.
• I thought I mis-heard when the announcers said Stanford’s PG (Jarrett Mann) shoots FTs in the 30% range. Nope, just looked it up, 13-36 on the year. That’s Gottlieb-esque.
• I have a semi-man-crush on Jean-Paul.
• Keiton’s shot is going to keep us in a lot of games. I love when he does that little head-fake side-step move and buries one. That’s going to be huge in conference play.
• Whose idea was it to schedule a Pac-10 game against a decent to good program over Christmas break?! Oh, yeah sure mom I’m going to be home 8 days late for Christmas because I have to stay up here to watch the Stanford game. No, nobody’s going to do that. Terrible. Or as Barkley would say, trbl.

This team just keeps winning. I’m not going to sit here and say I understand it or I can explain it because I can’t. It just seems like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in this case. Keiton keeps shooting, Moses keeps banging, Olukemi and Williams keep playing hard, Penn keeps D-ing up. It’s fun to watch.

Now they have two big ones before conference play. At Gonzaga on New Years Eve and home against UTSA on January 3. It would be HUGE to get to 13 wins before conference play because then you basically just need to hold serve at home in the Big XII to make the dance.