Oklahoma coach Porter Moser shouts during an NCAA men’s college basketball game between the University of Oklahoma and Texas at Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. Texas won 70-69.
Time: Jan. 4, 6:00 p.m.
Location: Norman, Okla.
TV: ESPN2
KenPom Prediction: 64-60, Oklahoma
1 — Sure shooting Sherfield
You’d be hard-pressed to find a guy in the Big 12 playing better than Grant Sherfield is right now for Oklahoma. The Nevada transfer is averaging 18.3 points and 3.8 assists while shooting 47.3 percent from the field and better than 52 percent from 3-point range.
The Wichita native was an absolute bucket at Nevada. He’s proving to be the same at the Power 5 level for Oklahoma.
“They’re a gifted offensive group. Sherfield is playing really well,” Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “Shooting it with a lot of confidence.”
Despite being one of the best shooting teams in all of college basketball, ranking ninth nationally in team 3-point percentage as of this writing at 39.4 percent, Oklahoma is not a team that will jack up shots at will.
The Sooners rank No. 240 nationally with only 35.6 percent of their shot attempts coming from behind the arc. Sherfield is the team’s leader in attempts per game with a little more than five, but that figure represents less than half his average field goal attempts per game.
Conversely, only seven teams in college basketball do a better job of forcing their opponents into shots from 3-point range than Iowa State. The Cyclones have made their living on forcing opposing players into difficult, contested shots, and they do it better than anybody in the country, according to ShotQuality.
This game is likely to come down to Oklahoma’s ability to take and make difficult shots. They’ve got the personnel capable of doing that, but it is a task that’s easier said than done.
“For us, our defensive system, we believe in it,” Otzelberger said. “We trust our process. We don’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about our opponent. Just do what we do and adjust things here and there that we need to be better at or be intentional with going against our opponent, but we’re going to come out and try to pressure the ball, take charges, block out and finish plays.”
2 — The Groves
While Sherfield is the engine that makes the Oklahoma car roll, twin brothers Tanner and Jacob Groves are the driver and co-pilot. The former Eastern Washington transfers are each playing some of their best ball at Oklahoma with each averaging in double figures scoring while playing efficiently.
Tanner, the 6-foot-10 more traditional big man, is shooting 72.9 percent on his two-point shots so far this season, which ranks in the top 20 nationally. He’s also an adept playmaker for others and fans can expect Oklahoma to run a significant portion of its offense through him.
“With (Tanner) Groves at the five, they have a unique dynamic of a big man that can not only facilitate the offense and shoot the three on the perimeter, but he’s a really gifted passer,” Otzleberger said. “They’ve got a veteran group.”
After struggling to find a niche in year one in Norman, Jacob Groves has solidified himself as a legitimate swingman threat on the perimeter, knocking down 44.9 percent of his shots from deep.
Like Sherfield, both of the Groves brothers have the potential to go off for big-scoring nights if given the right match-up. Preventing them from getting comfortable early in the game and dictating the flow will be key for Iowa State to knock them out of rhythm.
3 — A road test redo
While this team has passed almost every test it faced to this point in the season, there’s no choice but to give them an “F” for the performance they put forth in the first true road game last month in Iowa City.
Iowa State’s coaches and players have said they didn’t come into that game in the right state of mind, and it showed immediately as Iowa build a massive lead within the game’s first 10 minutes.
Iowa dictated the pace and physicality of the game while knocking down some uncharacteristic shots after gaining early confidence. This is the kind of thing that Iowa State has to avoid repeating at all costs if they hope to steal any of their nine league games over the next two months.
“We’ve gotta have a tremendous sense of urgency,” Otzelberger said. “We’ve gotta have a chip on our shoulder anytime you go on the road. You have to understand that you can’t be impacted by the environment. You can’t be impacted by any variables. You have to be together, and there were times in that game a month ago when those things affected us.”
How well Iowa State is able to dictate the game defensively during the first few media stretches will be interesting to watch. The Sooners don’t enter this game as a defensive juggernaut, but, like every team in the Big 12, they’re more than capable on that end.
You can also expect to see a hungry Oklahoma team after they blew a second-half lead at home in a 70-69 loss to Texas to open Big 12 play on Saturday.
It will be imperative that the Cyclones don’t give up anything easy to the Sooners while also being able to take advantage of the opportunities in front of them.
Iowa State didn’t do any of those things the last time it went on the road, and the end result reflected those failures. They’ll have to avoid repeating those mistakes if they hope to leave Norman with a win for the first time since 2019.
“Hopefully, we’ve moved past that where we can keep our focus on what’s in front of us,” Otzelberger said. “(We need to) understand it’s the same game that we play here at Hilton and have the same habits every single day that we work on.”