OU won in OT 71-63 and when I saw that final score, I was happy the game wasn't available for me to watch on TV. I also saw Jubanator's post this morning and while I agree with pretty much everything he said, I prefer to look at this as a positive rather than a negative. It's very unlike me as most know who read what I post, but for this team to comeback and get a win in OT I think is a very good sign. Now like Jubanator said, the fact that it took OT and that they had to hit a three pointer just to tie it up and force OT is certainly not a good thing bu the fact remains they found a way to win the game. I think we can all agree that last year's team would not have done the same, so for that fact alone this should be viewed as a good thing. Look, we all knew this team was going to struggle this year so last night shouldn't really have come as a surprise. This team showing it can overcome adversity, regardless of the opponent, and win a game it probably should have lost is a positive sign and the fact I'm choosing to focus on this morning.
All that said, this OU team trailed NCCU for essentially the entire game. An NCCU team in the midst of a 40 game road losing streak very nearly gave OU one of it's most embarassing losses of all-time. NCCU played zone for most of the game and if/when OU isn't hitting jump shots this team will struggle and struggle often. Last night was one of those games where OU wasn't hitting their shots and the score for most of the night reflected that fact. A perfect example of this would be Steven Pledger being the second leading scorer for OU on the night with 14 points, only after missing his first eight shots of the game. Pledger finished the game 3-13, Cade Davis was 2-10, Nick Thompson was 2-11, and Cameron Clark only took five shots the entire game. Add to it that for the game OU shot just 33% from the floot and 18% from three point range and it's easy to see why OU struggled all night. And therein lies the problem with this basketball team, very little inside presence and a bunch of VERY streaky shooters. Well that and Coach Capel, for some unknown reason, is limiting himself to a rotation of basically six guys. For the first time maybe ever in his tenure, he's got a relatively deep bench and he just isn't using them. I'm certainly not saying he's got a couple all-americans over there or anything, but why this early in the season would you limit yourself to just six guys? I really don't get it, but I'm sure as a fan I know even less about basketball than I do about football so take it for what you will.
So as we're all aware, this team needs to take any victory it can get (ugly or otherwise) last night included.
Somewhat non-minor side note - Capel announced after the game that highly touted freshman T.J. Taylor will redshirt this season. Taylor had suffered a concussion early in fall practices and has yet to really resume practicing with the team, so he and Capel have decided that he will sit out this season.