Breaking Down Bedlam – Sooners 89, Cowboys 81

Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin and Austin Johnson were the difference makers in last night’s Bedlam basketball game in Stillwater. O-State did everything in their power to turn it into a Bedlam brawl with cheap and classless fouls early on but it was to no avail as the Sooners proved to be too poised and even too tough to fall into that trap. What OSU learned was that you can’t bring a physical game against the Sooners when you have a finesse team. When the Cowboys quit trying to intimidate OU and went on playing their brand of basketball, which focuses on efficient passing to create outside shots, they made a game of it.

Oklahoma State’s initial game plan was to double and even triple team Blake Griffin in order to force Oklahoma to beat them with someone else. Austin Johnson quickly forced the Cowboys away from that plan by showing that he was more than capable of making O-State pay for focusing only on the inside. What happened next was a thing of beauty. Because of Johnson’s hot hand OSU had to pay more attention to the guards leaving Blake Griffin room to create havoc under the boards. Griffin single-handedly beat the Cowboys on the boards (19 to 16) and scored a game high 26 points in leading the Sooners to their fourth consecutive Bedlam basketball win with an 89-81 victory.

O-State made their spurts with streaky shooting that was more indicative of great Cowboy shooting at times than it was of poor Sooner defense. In the end it wasn’t enough though as the Sooners held OSU to 46% from the floor.

Bedlam Bites

• Dumbest Player On Earth – Oklahoma State’s Malcoln Kirkland played 3 minutes and tallied 3 personal fouls. Two of those were intentional fouls against Blake Griffin. You have to believe that wasn’t the game plan.

• Total Domination – As expected OSU had absolutely no presence under the basket. Oklahoma won the battle of the boards 38-18 and had a 34-16 advantage in points scored in the paint.

• Not so intimidating – Despite giving away free admission into the game OSU still couldn’t pack the house for Bedlam. I understand there were weather implications but it wasn’t a sellout before the ice storm arrived and you won’t convince me that there weren’t enough students on campus that could have walked to the arena. Now we’ve seen non-capacity crowds in Stillwater for Bedlam football and basketball. I guess that new ticket policy at OSU is working to perfection.

• Pleasant Surprise – To add depth to Oklahoma’s roster, forward Juan Pattillo told Jeff Capel that he wanted to come out of redshirt. He has provided quality minutes in every game and gave OU a 12 point performance last night.