College basketball week 16: 5 important things to know

By Chris Stone | Feb 19, 2018

NORMAN, OK - FEBRUARY 17: Trae Young #11 of the Oklahoma Sooners looks at the court after passing the half court line against the Texas Longhorns at Lloyd Noble Center on February 17, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. The Longhorns defeated the Sooners 77-66. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /

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March is coming, so here’s a look at what we learned around college basketball from last week

Welcome back to our weekly five takeaways column designed to get you caught up on all the most important things happening on the college basketball landscape. This week, we’re talking Oklahoma’s struggles, Wichita State’s new rivalry, the importance of North Carolina’s Kenny Williams, Georgetown’s big wins, and Villanova’s dominance.

1. Oklahoma’s margin for error in March is slim

The Oklahoma Sooners are just over one week removed from being named as a preliminary top four seed in the NCAA Tournament by the Selection Committee, but their grasp on the honor is slipping quickly.

The Sooners are losers of five straight and eight of their last 10. The newsworthy headline has been the struggles of superstar freshman Trae Young. He’s knocked down just 10 of his last 51 3-point attempts (19.6 percent) and made it known that he’s having a tough time with the different defenses he’s seeing. Young’s poor shooting isn’t Oklahoma’s only problem, though.

The other issue is on the defensive end where the Sooners ranked in the top 50 of adjusted efficiency last season, per KenPom. They’ve hovered around the top 100 mark in 2017-18 despite bringing back many of the same rotation players and holding onto consistent underlying shooting numbers year over year.

However, things have taken a turn for the worse in Big 12 play with Oklahoma conceding 109.7 points per 100 possessions, seventh best in the league. Notably, the Sooners are generating a turnover on a conference worst 14.9 percent of their opponents’ possessions.

Oklahoma isn’t built to win the type of ugly contests that often characterize March’s win or go home games. In fact, the Sooners have won just one game this season in which they’ve scored fewer than 1.1 points per possession, per KenPom. When the season-long problems on defense line up with poor offensive outings, they’re destined to lose games. The margin for error is thin.

In order for Oklahoma to outperform their current numbers in March, Young’s going to need to be otherworldly (again) or the team as a whole is going to need to lock in defensively. Slippage in one area or the other will probably lead to a quick out.