Texas Tech 72, Oklahoma 71: Postgame thoughts and observations
Tiny Gallon looked like, for a bit, he finally figured out teams have trouble guarding him when he makes strong moves to the basket. Dexter Pittman stopped him pretty consistently on the block on Saturday, but you’re not going to find many Dexter Pittman’s in college basketball.
Darko Cohadarevic, I assure you, is no Dexter Pittman.
“I think he’s close to 300 pounds, and guys like that, you’ve just got to try to contain him, not let him spin to the baseline and rely on your teammates to help,” Cohadarevic said. “Guys like that, you’ve just got to play him with an entire team, not just one-on-one. Because one-on-one, it’s really hard to stop him.”
Tiny should paste that on his locker and look at it every day. His numbers weren’t great (13 points, 5 rebounds) but I don’t think he made one move on the block in the second half that wasn’t aggressive and toward the goal. The most impressive came with just under five minutes left, when he made a nifty up-and-under move past Darko on the baseline and dunked it to bring the Sooners within four.
More of that will serve Mr. Gallon well.
* Speaking of Darko, he might have had the quote of the night, recounting his show of remorse to an official after picking up his third foul in the first half.
Asked if he was upset about the call, Darko said:
“Yes, but it was a foul. After I came down a little bit, I realized I did hook him. And I went up to the ref at the beginning of the second half and I said, ‘Good job. That was a good call.’ Some things like that happen in a game.”
Remember when Tim Duncan did that? Remember when any player ever did that? Me neither.
Maybe they do things differently in Serbia, where Darko is from, but I couldn’t help but smile when he said that.
And for all the complaining about fouls by the fans and others, Darko fouled out and Robert Lewandowski (Note: Pat Knight, please recruit big men with easier names to type) had four fouls. Oklahoma didn’t have anyone with more than three and the Red Raiders were whistled for one more team foul. That’s not to say the officials didn’t miss a few calls, but it’s not like it was heavily slanted one way.
* Willie Warren looked pretty good, especially on a gimpy ankle. For much of the game, he showed some of the slashing ability that landed him on draft boards to begin with. One more drive probably wouldn’t have hurt, instead of taking a three down one with under 10 seconds to play. That said, he hadn’t been getting foul calls on drives for most of the night and the ref probably would have swallowed his whistle in that situation. But my guess? If he had been getting calls earlier in the game, he would have attacked the goal one more time.
“It’s getting a lot better,” Warren said of the ankle. “Our trainer has been doing a great job having me wake up every morning, coming in and getting treatment two or three times a day. And it’s a day-to-day process. I’m not quite 100 percent, but that’s what I’m aiming for.”
