MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - There are really two ways to look at this year’s Oklahoma men’s basketball team, which Mountaineers fans will now get to see in person on Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum - the Sooner team that lost their first three Big 12 games Baylor, TCU and Kansas State without senior Jordan Woodard, or the one with a healthy Woodard that beat Texas Tech 84-75 Saturday in Norman.
The Oklahoma team minus Woodard was struggling to score 60 points a game and shoot 40 percent from the floor. The one with Woodard out there against the Red Raiders scored 84 points, shot 45 percent from the floor and assisted on 11 of its 25 made field goal attempts.
As for Woodard, well, all he did was made six field goals and all 14 free throws for a game-high 27 points. He also grabbed seven rebounds (helping OU to a 12-board advantage on the glass), handed out three assists and made three steals.
In the 12 games Woodard has played this year, the 6-foot, 187-pound guard is averaging a team-best 17.5 points and 3.7 assists per game. He is also one of the team’s better rebounders, grabbing 5.3 per game.
And having Woodard back out there takes some of the scoring pressure off of 6-foot-6-inch, 212-pound sophomore guard Rashard Odomes, now averaging 10.5 points per game while shooting and even 50 percent from the floor.
Odomes contributed 24 in the Texas Tech victory on nine-of-14 shooting.
Forward Khadeem Lattin, a player Mountaineer fans have become very familiar with through the years, scored 10 points, grabbed six rebounds and blocked two shots against Texas Tech and is averaging 8.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.
Six-four sophomore guard Christian James is giving Oklahoma 10.2 points per game off the bench.
Oklahoma, a Final Four participant last year with National Player of the Year Buddy Hield, is in an unfamiliar position this year near the bottom of the Big 12 standings with Texas and Oklahoma State, a clear demonstration of just how difficult the league is again this season.
This is a league in which every single game last Saturday was decided by single digits and 19 of the 26 games so far have been determined by 10 points or less.
It’s a league that has three teams among the nation’s top seven - the only conference in the country to lay claim to that statistic.
It’s a league that has had all 10 members either ranked or receiving votes in the top 25, including six ranked or receiving votes this week.
It’s a league that has posted a .600 win percentage against the other major conferences, matching the Big East for the best non-conference win percentage.
And it’s a league with an .822 non-conference winning percentage that would rank it 14th-best in NCAA history if the season ended today.
That’s how good the Big 12 has been and that’s why Oklahoma’s 7-9 overall record is very, very misleading.
The seventh-ranked Mountaineers saw first-hand in Austin, Texas, last Saturday afternoon what one of the bottom Big 12 teams is capable, the Longhorns leading West Virginia by six with 10 minutes left in the game.
That’s when junior guard Jevon Carter took over and scored the majority of his 15 points, one off senior guard Teyvon Myers’ career-high 16 points. Senior guard Tarik Phillip came off the bench to contribute 14 points for the Mountaineers.
West Virginia (15-2, 4-1) made just four-of-18 from 3 and couldn’t turn over a young and inexperienced Longhorn backcourt until late in the game.
Carter leads the Big 12 and ranks fourth nationally in steals with 53, while freshman forward Sagaba Konate continues to give West Virginia a rim-protecting presence when he’s in the game. Konate had another big block against Texas’ Shaquille Cleare in the second half of last Saturday's game and shows a team-best 26 blocks in only 176 minutes of action.
West Virginia’s tag-team trio of Konate, Brandon Watkins and Elijah Macon at the five position is giving the Mountaineers a robust 16.9 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.
Despite an off-night at Texas, sophomore forward Esa Ahmad remains the team's leading scorer with an average of 12.1 points per game, while Carter (11.2), senior forward Nathan Adrian (10.5) and junior guard Daxter Miles Jr. (10.4) are also averaging double digits.
West Virginia ranks No. 1 in the Big 12 in scoring with an average of 89.1 points per game.
Wednesday’s game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Mark Neely and Fran Fraschilla).
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s radio coverage will begin at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via leanStream and the mobile app TuneIn.
With the WVU women playing Kansas at the same time Wednesday night, local radio coverage of the men’s game will be on WRLF (94.3 FM) and WZST (100.9 FM) while the women’s game will air locally on WMMN (920 AM) and online via leanStream.
Tickets are still available for the Oklahoma game and can be purchased by logging on to
WVUGAME.com.
