Oklahoma and Villanova have played previously this season. It was on a Pearl Harbor naval base on Pearl Harbor Day in a strange encounter that will not likely be replicated on Saturday in Houston.
Villanova’s defense then was not what it is now. The Wildcats’ propensity for slow starts early in the season has emphatically not been in evidence in the NCAA Tournament. And the floor leaders of each team are playing on totally different arcs.
That’s why it seems highly unlikely that Oklahoma’s 78-55 win back on Dec. 7 will be at all relevant as the teams prepare to meet in Saturday’s national semifinal at NRG Stadium (see story).
That Dec. 7 game was won entirely at the three-point line where the Sooners enjoyed a whopping 30-point advantage. They made their first six shots, all threes, and led virtually wire to wire.
Wooden Award favorite Buddy Hield might not have even been star of the game. New York-bred two-guard Isaiah Cousins made all four of his treys and dished out 10 assists while committing only two turnovers.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats went 4 of 32 from the arc, their worst performance of the season. Ryan Arcidiacano collected only 10 points and two assists. And Villanova was certainly not the self-assured defensive team it is today.
Cousins is the key component here, emblematic of Oklahoma’s increasingly ragged style of play — something of which you’d think 'Nova can take advantage.
In the 20 games up to and including his game-winning pull-up jumper with four seconds left to beat LSU, the 6-4 senior Cousins was a very solid player as OU went 18-2. He averaged 13 points and just 1.7 turnovers in those 20 games.
But in the last 10 games, Cousins has averaged more than twice as many turnovers (3.5) and just 10.5 points while not shooting at his prior clip. In particular, if you can force Cousins inside the arc, he’s been trending lately toward less than optimum shots, some off-balance runners and pull-ups, and the results bear that out (22 of 64 on two-pointers).
Jay Wright has several options to try to limit the 6-4 Hield with 6-5 Josh Hart and 6-7 Mikal Bridges probably ultimately taking a turn (see story). But you’re not stopping Hield. You just hope to hold him down some. He’s too good a shooter with too quick a release.
What Wright does to induce giveaways from Cousins might actually be more interesting, including occasional 1-2-2 trapping pressure and extending in the halfcourt with Hart, Arcidiacano and Jalen Brunson.
Cousins is a high risk/reward player going against a Villanova defense that appears specifically adept at inducing mistakes in such a player. And the Oklahoma offense is vulnerable to his recklessness because he, not lead guard Jordan Woodard, is often the prime facilitator for Hield. Rupture the pipe and you choke off the faucet.
Cousins is not the only one who gets loose with the ball. Hield, despite his 37 points in the impressive 80-68 win over Oregon, gave it away six times in that game and five times in the prior game against Texas A&M.
The Sooners had 15 overall turnovers in each game, an unacceptable number for most teams, especially against good opponents in the NCAA Tournament. They beat you by seeing each other, getting good shots and making them.
But they prefer clean, freewheeling basketball. The Sooners don’t depend on getting to the line, they prefer the three-point shot (42.8 three-point percentage, No. 2 of 351 Division I teams) and they like to shoot quickly. Oregon was a good matchup for them that way because the Ducks allowed free-flowing pace and didn’t crowd the Sooners too much.
Oklahoma is not accustomed to playing grinders in the Big 12 other than West Virginia, against whom it had mixed success (2-1, making only nine turnovers in an easy win in Morgantown; 21 in what was probably a throw-away Big 12 Tournament game that neither team needed but WVU won).
Villanova’s job, then, is to scramble, bump, impede, help, recover and make this game a rock fight like the one against Kansas. There was limited evidence until the Kansas game, in fact, that it was a preferred method of the Wildcats. But they made it work. And the Sooners like to play stream-of-consciousness ball a lot like the Jayhawks.
Hield might be their big gun. But Cousins is their munitions logistics guy. Strangle him and you just might get Oklahoma to submit.