Oklahoma Basketball: Keys to beating Virginia in Round of 32

After struggling against 16 seed Gardner-Webb, should Virginia be worried about Oklahoma Basketball?

Oklahoma Basketball cruised past 8th seeded Ole Miss in the round one by the core of 95-72. They now will have the tall task of playing a 1st seeded Virginia team.

So does Oklahoma even have a chance? I think they do. Here’s three key’s for Oklahoma to win this game, and if they can achieve these three things we could very well see Oklahoma pull off the upset.

Key No. 1: Limit Virginia’s possessions

Getting rebounds and forcing turnovers are key ways to limit a teams possessions. I had each pegged as a key for Oklahoma to beat Ole Miss, but beating Virginia is much more complex, so they both will slot into the same category.

In the Ole Miss game the Sooners forced eleven turnovers, with ten of those coming from steals. This game however, forcing turnovers will be a very hard thing to do, as Virginia has given up the ball the least amount of times out of any team this year. And by a wide margin. They have turned the ball over 289 times this season. Michigan is the second place team with 300 turnovers. So, as you can tell Virginia doesn’t turn the ball over willingly. But Gardner-Webb didn’t listen to any of that as they forced Virginia to almost hit their season average of turnovers a game this season in a single half. Virginia averages 9.1 turnovers a game, and the Bulldogs forced eight before the half, which was a large part in why they had a 36-30 lead at going into the break.

Virginia stormed back in the second half, winning by the score of 71-56. Gardner-Webb, however, still forced the Cavaliers to turn the ball over seven times in the second half, forcing 15 total on the game. The only problem was that G-Webb turned it over more often with 16. If Oklahoma can protect the ball as well as they did against Ole Miss(Only had 3 turnovers) and find a way to disrupt Virginia’s offense the same way Gardner-Webb did, then Oklahoma could end up winning the coveted turnover battle.

Virginia dominated G-Webb on the boards, winning the battle 33-18. They’ll have a little tougher time against this Oklahoma team. Oklahoma averages more rebounds a game then the Cavaliers do. Oklahoma snatches 37.59 rebounds a game compared to Virginia’s 34.63 rebounds a contest, which is comparable to Ole Misses 34.31 a game. Speaking of first round foes, Gardner-Webb ranks three spots ahead of Ole Miss nationally in rebounds at 34.38 per game to give you a comparison.

So, although Oklahoma should’ve beat the Rebels in the rebounds category by a much larger margin, they only won by two. Virginia on the other hand faced a team that compares to Ole Miss very well in that category and dominated the boards, getting 11 offensive rebounds in the process. Part of OU not winning the rebound babble so easily, was the seven offensive boards they allowed Ole Miss to grab. The Sooners need’s to make it a priority to make sure UVA doesn’t get any second chances.