OH MY GOD! What an incredible game! Coach Boynton for gahdarn president! Oklahoma State splits the Bedlam Series after Trae Young misses a game winning three pointer in overtime.

CHECK OUT THE ROWDY PREGAME!!!

NOW CHECK OUT THE ROWDY POSTGAME!

First Half

The first half was a roller coaster. Oklahoma State was full of energy from the tip as they raced off to a 25-8 lead. The game tempo was 100mph for both teams, and the difference was that the Cowboys were playing team basketball and the Sooners were playing Trae Young ball. Young took 15 first half shots, and the rest of the team took 18.

After the initial Oklahoma State surge, Oklahoma dropped back into a strict zone defense and made the Cowboys play a slower half court pace. The offense went from opportunistic to reliant on three point chucking. The Cowboys only shot 26.3% from deep in the first half, so you can see how the Sooners got back into the game.

The OU offense was ALL Trae Young (14pts, 3AST). His teammates were just standing around trying not to get in the way. The Cowboys countered the hero-ball offense by throwing BODIES at the freshman point guard. They had Young flustered, I felt like he was physically losing his hair out there on the court. Young only had four turnovers in the half, but the Cowboys definitely forced Young out of his rhythm.

For Oklahoma State, it was a much more balanced offense with Seniors, Jeff Carroll (13pts) and Kendall Smith (11pts) leading the way. Like I said earlier, after the beginning spurt, the offense became reliant on the three point chucking and it wasn't pretty.

It wasn’t all ugly in the end though, Kendall Smith splashed a buzzer beating three to end the first half.

First Half Stats

Second Half

Welp. Trae Young and Gang woke up in this half and the Cowboys were just trying to survive. Young started the second half with 14 points and ended up with 42... yup. As soon as Young took a step back and realized that he had teammates to pass to, he became much more comfortable. Watching his teammates open up the floor for him and getting some easy buckets, Young settled down and started scorching the nets from deep. I mean... reeeeally deep. The sharpshooter canned six three pointers in the second half alone.

Meanwhile the Cowboys continued to rely on the attack of Jeffrey Carroll and Kendall Smith. The pair put up 36 points combined and Carroll had a great game on the boards with 12 total rebounds. Mitch Solomon had a rough game offensively, but he was sooooo important down the stretch. The Cowboys would be hanging their heads in a loss if Solomon didn't steal Trae Young’s cookies, dive for the ball, and deliver a dime to Tavarius Shine (who had a sneaky good game) for an open dunk.

The game was a forced into overtime after a clutch three pointer from Kendall Smith in the final seconds of regulation:

Second Half Stats

Overtime

A little extra Bedlam never killed anybody, right?.... right?

Well, Tavarius Shine started off overtime right by splashing a three right off the bat. Then it was the Jeffrey Carroll vs. Trae Young show. Young scores 6 points and and dishes an assist during the extra time, and Carroll scored 5 points and snagged a big rebound.

After Carroll missed two free throws to put the game out of reach, Oklahoma had the ball with just over 7 seconds left.

Let’s see what this bum does:

HAHAHAHAHA

Full Stats

Notes

My favorite tweet of the night goes to Carson Cunningham:

• It was one of those, “really sucked on offense but was the most important player on the court” games for Mitchell Solomon. He only had two points, but the team is just soooo much better when he’s on the court and it’s evident. He’s not nearly the most skilled or athletic guy we have, but every time he steps on the court you know that he is the smartest guy out there. He’s huge for the Cowboys.
• Did you hear that Lindy Waters and Trae Young were high school teammates?
• The Cowboys had 18 points off of turnovers. You can tell that this team really thrives in fast break situations. I’d like to see the team turn up the pace a little bit down the stretch of this season.
• We won today because of the crowd. You can tell guys like Jeffrey Carroll really feed off of the energy in the stands, and GIA was in prime condition this afternoon. KEEP IT UP! BRING THE ROWDY!!!
• Lindy Waters and Trae Young were high school teammates. Didn’t you hear?

There really is nothing like Bedlam! You gotta love it baby!!!!

GO POKES!!!