Oklahoma Basketball: 3 thoughts from Porter Moser after OU’s 72-48 win over Alcorn State
Oklahoma closed out 2021 with a 72-48 win over Alcorn State. Senior guard Umoja Gibson led the Sooners in scoring with his 17 points. Gibson finished 5-of-9 from 3-point range.
The win means Oklahoma enters Big 12 play at 10-2 when OU hosts Kansas State at 7 p.m. on New Year’s Day. Here were three postgame thoughts from Oklahoma head men’s basketball coach Porter Moser.
Ethan Chargois and the bench played well
The redshirt senior transferred to OU from SMU. Chargois finished with eight points and a pair of rebounds in 15 minutes of action against Alcorn State.
“I thought Ethan played really well. He’s been getting minutes. I thought Bijan, C.J., Jakob, those guys have got to continue to get better and get deeper. What I did see is when they came in, I didn’t see a big drop-off defensively. That’s what I was really [looking for]. The last couple games–not the Arkansas game–but Arlington, when we started making subs, the defense went down. It was not the case tonight. I thought the subs continued to guard well,” Moser said.
Slow start offensively, but OU figured it out
Oklahoma didn’t get off to its typical start. Against Alcorn State, the Sooners misfired on their first seven 3-point tries. Finally, Chargois broke the ice from distance at the 10:36 mark of the first half to make the score 11-4 OU.
“I’ve got to look at it to be honest with you. Sometimes with a slow start, I’m like, man, ‘We didn’t get good shots.’ I’ve got to look at the tape, but I thought we moved it. We’re looking at our stats, we started out I think 0-for-7 from three and I thought we got a ton of good shots. So, I didn’t think we started out slow in terms of what you might think slow is. Like, man, they’re stagnant. We just started out missing a bunch of shots. I was kind of pleased with how we moved the ball a lot of the times,” Moser said.
The Sooners finished 9-of-21 on 3-pointers and wound up shooting a season-best 60 percent from the floor.
Being 10-2 entering Big 12 play
By and large, Moser is happy with his team’s start to the season.
“On some aspects, I’m pleased. I’m never satisfied. Did a lot of people think we’d be where we are today? No, but I think we kind’ve felt like we could move this team along if they’re defending and now the next phase is conference and we’ve got to step it up another level,” Moser said.
The Big 12 conference is home to the defending national champion in Baylor. It also currently boasts the lowest average NET ranking of any league at 36.5 and all of the Big 12 teams are ranked within the top 80 of the NET rankings.
“This is the best basketball league in the country bar none this year, so we’ve got to take it up another level. I’m a big proponent of letting these guys have a couple days with their families. They’ve been going through Thanksgiving. And then we come back, we’ve got to really go back to work for an unbelievable conference season in the Big 12,” Moser said.
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