With 10 games left in the Big XII regular season, and a conference tourney looming, the Oklahoma Sooners still have room for improvement. What follows are the five areas that are most important for Oklahoma to continue its roll to the Big XII regular season title and a possible No. 1 seed.

 

1) Guard play

Austin “Half Court Shot” Johnson has been on fire—the kind of on fire that burns with the fury of a thousand suns. So hot, that if Jeff Capel had told him to stand outside before OU’s win in Stillwater Monday night, the ambient heat from his body would have melted all of the ice in Oklahoma and caused a super-storm the likes of which the Great Plains hasn’t seen since the Paleolithic era.

The one knock on Oklahoma all season has been that they will live or die with the play of their guards. Tony Crocker has been solid. Willie Warren, the best NBA talent of the group, has been brilliant in spots, dropping 18.8 points on the road this season, but has also disappeared at times.

OU has proven the strength of its guards. Now they have to continue to prove it for at least 10 more games.

 

2) Blake Griffin’s Ball Security

Blake Griffin is a monster; no one is debating that. He can, however, improve his game, and Oklahoma’s prospects, by focusing on ball security. He must stop turning the ball over.

Griffin averages 3.2 turnovers a game. The impact of this is diminished because the Sooners are 20-1, and because Griffin also averages 2.5 assists per contest, but make no mistake, he averages more turnovers than any single player for UConn, Duke, North Carolina, Pitt, or Notre Dame. His assist to turnover ratio hovers around 1/1.3, but with his precision as a passer, this figure could easily be reversed.

Griffin is double-teamed almost constantly, so a turnover now and then is expected, but if Griffin can curb his propensity to give the ball away and morph those turnovers into assists, then he will truly be hitting on all cylinders.

 

3) Prove it on the Road

OU’s only loss this season came at Arkansas. The Big XII is traditionally a hard league to steal road victories in. OU is 3-0 in league road games, but that dominance away from the Lloyd Noble Center could be a mirage.

OU has beaten Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and Texas A&M on the road, but their RPIs respectively are 28th, 105th, and 46th—not exactly dominant competition. However, the OSU win is respectable considering what a snake pit Gallagher-Iba Arena can be.

Continued road success will prove the mettle of this team. Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech, and Missouri all await the Sooners, in their own buildings, and have RPIs of 20, 35, 94, and 29.

The Sooners haven’t won in Austin in Jeff Capel’s tenure at Oklahoma. Baylor will want revenge for the hoop train Griffin and his gang ran on the Bears in Norman. OU hasn’t beaten Missouri in Columbia in seven years. The Red Raiders are down this year, but Lubbock is loud, and one bad night of shooting and a few calls against Griffin, and Big XII perfection is a shattered dream for the Sooners.

 

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