Oklahoma State Back to Corrections Ahead of Big 12 Home Opener with UCF
STILLWATER – On the surface Tuesday night’s Big 12 home opener for Oklahoma State looks like a showdown with another Big 12 school in UCF that is looking to change the narrative on their recent hoops reputation. Hey, it is, except that UCF got a head start with an impressive Big 12 opening win inside Addition Financial Arena on campus with an 81-75 win over No. 17 Kansas. Wins over the Jayhawks are special. UCF is 12-1 after playing a similar non conference schedule as the Cowboys.
I did not expect Oklahoma State to beat No. 14 Texas Tech on Saturday, but I expected something closer than we saw. So did head coach Steve Lutz.
“Eighty points on the road in the Big 12 should be enough to win a basketball game,” Lutz said afterwards. “But not when you give up 102 (points), that embarrasing. We have talked about playing better defense and that starts with guarding the basektball and then right behind it our pick and roll defense. We didn’t do that and we allowed them to make 17 three-pointers.”
Now, the Cowboys have a chance to beat a ranked team at home because after the win over Kansas, UCF is in the Associated Press Top 25 at No. 25. Senior guard Riley Kugel for head coach Johnny Dawkins is averaging 14.1 points per game and shooting 39 percent from three-point range. Forward Jordan Burks is averaging 13.8 points, guard Themus Fulks is averaing 13.5 points and the two combine to shoot 42.4 percent from beyond the three-point line.
“Our defense on the three-point line wasn’t good enough. We gave up 10 three-pointers in the first half, that’s 30 points,” Lutz said on Saturday postgame very disappointed. “You are not going to beat anybody doing that.”
So, another chance to show you can defend three-point shooters. Oklahoma State averages scoring about three points more than UCF. They also average allowing five points more per game than the Knights. UCF is a better shooting team overall and significantly from three-point range. Things have to change. They have to because while Oklahoma State hoped to be better this season, others in the Big 12 have worked for the same goal and seem to be further along with it.
“We had several guys that didn’t make shots,” Lutz said. “We missed lay-ups, we missed threes, we missed pull up jumpers. Tech was 21 assists on 37 made baskets and we were 10 assists on 29. That means you are taking a lot of individual shots, instead of working with your teammates to get the best shots for us to win. I think we took ill advised, selfish shots and it killed us, it really did.”
Assists, yes, UCF is better there as they average one more assist per game than the Pokes (16.8-to-15.9). Time to improve and the urgency is even greater.
The Cowboys (12-2/0-1) and the Knights (12-1/1-0) top off at 7 p.m. inside Gallagher-Iba Arena on Tuesday (Jan. 6).
