Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoNorman, Okla. ? The O in Oklahoma stands for the number of points Aaron McGhee scored in Kansas’ 69-61 victory over the Sooners on Saturday afternoon.
“To put it bluntly,” said McGhee, the Sooners’ leading scorer at 16.4 points a game, “I couldn’t throw a shot in the ocean. Hats off to Kansas. They played great defense today.”
McGhee, a 6-foot-8 junior college transfer, played 25 minutes, took nine shots and missed them all. Then, adding insult to injury, McGhee fouled out in the last minute.
OU coach Kelvin Sampson hinted that McGhee shouldn’t have unloaded most of those nine bricks.
“Aaron got some looks,” Sampson said. “None of our guys are trying not to score, but there are times when you need to kick it out.”
Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoIn other words, trying to shoot the ball inside against the Jayhawks’ tall timber was not a good idea.
“McGhee didn’t have any baskets, but he had eight rebounds,” Sampson noted.
Yes, there’s that.
“I’ve been working on my rebounding during the week,” McGhee said, “and I think it showed today. No excuses I just didn’t have my normal offensive game.”
As a team, Oklahoma shot only 31.9 percent. Leading scorer Hollis Price (18 points) was 5-of-14 from the field and Nolan Johnson (16 points) was 6-of-18.
“We couldn’t overcome their height,” Johnson said. “That was the difference. It was difficult for any of us to shoot over them today. I thought if we could have played just a bit better we could have won.”
Two OU starters McGhee and point guard J.R. Raymond failed to score.
“I thought we’d shoot better,” Sampson said. “Obviously, we need to get more out of certain guys. J.R. we’ve got to find a way to get him going.”
Raymond has been averaging 7.5 points a game, but shooting only about 40 percent from the floor.
Otherwise, Sampson threw plenty of bouquets at the Jayhawks.
“Against Kansas, your margin of error isn’t as great as it is against other teams,” Sampson said. “Offensively, this is the best Kansas team I’ve seen in a long time. This team offensively is the best Roy has had in a while.”
Now if only the Sooners had played better offensively.
“I thought we were good enough to win today,” the OU coach said. “We’re a good team. We lose by eight and we shot 32 percent. Our defense was really, really good. Today was the best defense we’ve played.
“But we needed to be hitting on all cylinders in this game, and it just didn’t happen.”
Three-point goals: 6-13 (Boschee 4-8, Gregory 1-1, Hinrich 1-2, Axtell 0-2). Assists: 13 (Hinrich 6, Gregory 3, Boschee 2, Gooden, Collison). Turnovers: 18 (Hinrich 8, Chenowith 4, Collison 3, Gooden 2, Team). Blocked shots: 5 (Gooden 2, Collison 2, Chenowith). Steals: 6 (Boschee 2, Collison 2, Gooden, Hinrich). |
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Three-point goals: 8-20 (Newton 4-9, Price 3-6, Johnson 1-2, McGhee 0-1, Heskett 0-2). Assists: 10 (Johnson 3, Price 2, Newton 2, Griffin, McGhee, Heskett). Turnovers: 15 (McGhee 3, Newton 3, Johnson 2, Price 2, Raymond 2, Selvy 2, Heskett). Blocked shots: 8 (Gilbert 5, McGhee 2, Price). Steals: 8 (Johnson 3, Selvy 2, McGhee, Price, Gilbert). |
