Oklahoma's Five Keys to Reaching the Final Four

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.

4) Bench Play

The maturation of the bench is of the utmost importance to the Sooners’ national championship hopes. OU’s starting five ranges from the best player in the nation to a few superb role players. The bench has been a point of weakness; however, with the sudden injection of Juan Pattillo into the lineup, Oklahoma may have a definite answer to the question of depth outside their five starters.

Pattillo was invaluable in the Oklahoma State win, and if he continues to find his legs, he will be an extremely serviceable replacement for either of the Griffins when they need rest.

Cade Davis is also developing nicely as a role player. Coming out of high school in Elk City, OK, Davis was ranked only behind Blake Griffin as the best player in the state. He is lights out from three-point land and a very good passer. The problem is that Oklahoma is only seven, maybe eight, players deep.

If Blake Griffin was to fall to an injury, this team would immediately evaporate; he is that good. No team could lose a talent like Griffin and emerge unblemished.

Similarly, if Austin Johnson were to go down, that could also spell doomsday for the Sooners. There is nary a player on the roster that could fill in for Johnson, and, according to Capel, he isn’t even a “true” point guard. OU must develop depth at the point and at the forward spots to survive in March.

5) Peak Late

The Sooners must peak late. Playing well in February is important, but not indicative of success. Playing well in March is where careers are made and destroyed. Oklahoma must play hungry, and they must play their best ball at the end of the season.

No one in Norman wants a National Player of the Year award at the expense of a Final Four banner. The fans of Oklahoma would rather win a national championship, their first in basketball, than have another Big XII tourney title.

The key to that goal is in the No. 1 seed. If OU plays well down the stretch and dominates the second half of its conference schedule, as it did the first half, and continues its success into the late rounds of the Big XII tournament, a one seed is not out of the question.

Duke, Carolina, and Wake Forest are going to beat each other up in the ACC, as are Pitt, UConn, Georgetown, Marquette, and a host of other teams in the Big East. OU is, at this moment, the best bet of any team outside those conferences to get one of the top seeds.

As it stands right now, OU is a talented team with a huge upside. Are they a legitimate Final Four threat? You bet.

Are they a Final Four lock? Not unless they continue to improve every game, and rise to the level of their competition, competition that will only get tougher each subsequent game.