Oklahoma Sooners Basketball: Trae Young, Brady Manek lead OU to 109-89 Bedlam victory

It was a bit of a sloppy start for the Oklahoma Sooners, but a pair of Oklahomans led the way to a run-away Bedlam victory to the tune of 109-89. Trae Young and Brady Manek, two native Okies, did damage from the field all night long. Also, Young etched his name atop another category in the Sooner record books:

Trae Young finished the game with 27 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds — one board shy of a triple double. At this point Young is spoiling us all with his incredible basketball prowess. I don’t know how far his run will go as far as March Madness is concerned, but he’s quickly becoming one of the more consistent super stars in recent college basketball memory.

Harrah native Brady Manek was outstanding in his own right, totaling 28 points on 9-11 shooting (6-8 from three). Young is the man with the hyped (and deservedly so), but more needs to be said about this homegrown duo.

It’s worth noting how great the crowd turnout was tonight! Oklahoma fans are definitely ready to switch to hoops at this point.

Three takeaways

• Even in a rivalry game, the Sooners took care of business at home against a team with less depth and overall talent. That speaks volumes for a team in any sport. Not only have the Sooners played hard and come away with victories against the top teams they’ve played, they’re dominating the teams they should dominate. That kind of consistency reflects on how Lon Kruger has instilled in his team a healthy respect for all opponents. That will ultimately help develop more quality depth down the stretch.

• Trae Young is part human after all. Coming into this game, Young had one personal foul in his last three games. Tonight was a little bit different. Young was tagged with three fouls, including a technical foul in the first half. With this game being a rivalry game, it was expected to be a chippy contest from the beginning. Young is, well, young, but overall he has played under control and poised. And for the record, I felt the tech he was given was a weak one on the part of the ref.
• Newsflash: free throws are FREE. It’s great that the Sooners reached the line for 34 attempts, but in a close game, missing 10 of those attempts again could mean the difference between winning and losing. Still, with the clip Oklahoma scores at, improving the free throw percentage would only make this team even more formidable.

What’s next?

The Sooners will make their way up to Morgantown to take on No. 6 West Virginia this Saturday at 6:15 PM CT. Oklahoma split the series last season, and have won the last two meetings in Morgantown. The Mountaineers play a stifling style of basketball, as they are one of the few teams in the NCAA to run a full-court press the majority of the time. This will mark the third time this season the Sooners have played a top 10 team on the road.

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