First things first, this is the last home game until December 2nd. So you should head on down to the Lloyd Noble Center and support the men's basketball team!
OU will host Louisiana-Monroe at 7pm on Tuesday Night. Louisiana-Monroe comes into the game ranked 188th in Ken Pomeroy's ratings and 282nd in Jeff Sagarin's ratings. They lost their opener on the road against LSU 82-62, but won their next game against Alcorn State at home 82-66.
The Warhawks appear likely to start a front court consisting of three forwards ranging in height from 6'6" to 6'8". They do have a player that gets about 15-20 minutes per game who is a 7-foot redshirt freshman. Still, they seem to have problems in the paint as their offensive rebounding percentage, both for their team and yielding to opponents are well above the national average. In fact, over their first two games they have allowed opponents to nab about 40% of their total rebounds on the offensive end.
According to the Ken Pomeroy breakdown, their offense doesn't seem to be terribly efficient, and that's probably due to a poor turnover rate. They turn the ball over (or at least they have so far) on about 1 out of every 4 possessions. In fact, it says that they play with a good amount of pace, but I think they probably play with an average pace and their stats are inflated by a high turnover percentage.
They shoot a great percentage from beyond-the-arc (43.8%), but they don't attempt many three pointers (only 27.8% of their shots, about 5% below the D1 average). It says they limit opponents to 22.9% shooting from beyond the arc. The reason for that is probably two-fold: (1) they haven't played a great 3-point shooting team yet (2) they may concentrate their defenders on the perimeter and thus yield a lot of easy 2-point attempts. In fact, if you also consider the offensive rebounding statistics, this seems to be true. If a lot of their guys play defense on the perimeter, they would tend to give up a higher percentage of offensive rebounds.
Here's some players/things to watch:
Leading scorer: Tony Hooper (5-11, G), 14.5 ppg, 71.4% 3P%, 2.0 spg
Leading rebounder: Tommie Sykes (6-4, F), 5.5 rpg, also 11.5 ppg, 91.7% FT%
Leading assist man: Warren Fuselier (5-9, G), 3.0 apg, 1.5 spg
6 players average at least 22 minutes of playing time.
Nobody scores more than 15 ppg, but 7 players score more than 5 ppg (they spread the ball around).
Also, we close with a look at ESPN's 24 hours of college basketball marathon...
Here was the schedule when it was released. These games start at 12am on Monday Night :
12 a.m. Cal State Fullerton at UCLA ESPN / ESPN360.com
2 a.m. San Diego State at St. Mary’s ESPN / ESPN360.com
4 a.m. Northern Colorado at Hawaii ESPN / ESPN360.com
6 a.m. Monmouth at St. Peter’s ESPN / ESPN360.com
8 a.m. Drexel at Niagara ESPN / ESPN360.com
10 a.m. Clemson at Liberty ESPN / ESPN360.com
noon Northeastern at Siena ESPN / ESPN360.com
2 p.m. Arkansas Little-Rock at Tulsa ESPN / ESPN360.com
4 p.m. Temple at Georgetown ESPN / ESPN360.com
5:30 p.m. O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic: Binghamton at Pittsburgh ESPN2 / ESPN360.com
6 p.m. Dick’s Sporting Goods NIT from Durham, N.C. (Duke University)* ESPN / ESPN360.com
7 p.m. ESPNU Road to the Championship: Tennessee vs. Texas Tech (women’s game from San Antonio) ESPNU
7:30 p.m. Hall of Fame Showcase: Arkansas vs. Louisville (from St. Louis) ESPN2 / ESPN360.com
8 p.m. Gonzaga at Michigan State ESPN / ESPN360.com
8 p.m. Northern Illinois at Illinois ESPN360.com
9 p.m. O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic: Duquesne at Iowa ESPNU
9:30 p.m. ESPNU Road to the Championship: Connecticut vs. Texas (women’s game from San Antonio) ESPN2 / ESPN360.com
10 p.m. Hall of Fame Showcase: Memphis vs. Kansas (from St. Louis) ESPN / ESPN360.com
11:30 p.m. Dick’s Sporting Goods NIT from Tempe, Ariz. (Arizona State University)* ESPN2 / ESPN360.com
I'd say the best games are going to have to be:
- Memphis vs. Kansas in St. Louis at 10pm Tuesday evening
- Gonzaga at Michigan State at 8pm Tuesday evening
- Temple at Georgetown at 4pm Tuesday afternoon