Auburn basketball vs. Oklahoma: Scouting report, score prediction
AUBURN — One year before coach Bruce Pearl led Auburn basketball to its first Final Four in 2019, Porter Moser guided Loyola Chicago there as an 11-seed.
It was the turning point in the career of "one of the best young coaches in the country," as Pearl calls him. Moser brought Loyola back to the Sweet 16 last season then was hired by Oklahoma, where he is trying to build a major conference program for the first time.
Oklahoma (13-7) visits No. 2 Auburn (19-1) on Saturday (1 p.m., ESPN) at Auburn Arena in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. The Sooners are trying to fight their way into the NCAA Tournament with a top-five road win. Here are three storylines and a prediction.
One of college basketball's great defensive minds
Moser is part of the Rick Majerus coaching tree and has advertised himself on a heavy defense-first philosophy. There are some unique elements to how he schemes.
Moser is notably all about taking away weak side opportunities. When he can afford it, he prefers to have defenders stay home on corner shooters instead of collapsing with help defense on dribble drives. His Loyola teams often defended under ball screens, but in the Big 12, his screen coverage has varied more.
"Oklahoma guards a lot like we try to guard," Pearl said. "There's a lot of similarities in their coverages. When you think about how we would design our defense, we would design our defense to be able to stop our offense. ... So the things that they'll do defensively are effective against our offense because that's how we designed our defense."
Oklahoma holds opponents to 30.7% 3-point shooting, which is top-65 in the country and fourth in the Big 12. Moser's teams emphasize forcing jump shots off the dribble. The Sooners are No. 31 nationally in scoring defense (62.5 points per game). During their 9-2 start, eight of their games included five-minute scoreless stretches for their opponents.
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Clean shooters but turnover-prone
Oklahoma is the No. 8 shooting team in the country, making 49.4% of shots including 59.5% inside the arc. Enter Auburn's rim protector, Walker Kessler.
In two of Auburn's recent upset scares, Ole Miss and Missouri jumped out to early leads shooting better than usual. That's becoming the norm; the Tigers are getting every underdog's best. Considering the Sooners already shoot so well on an average day, Auburn doesn't want to see their best.
The problem? Turnovers.
Oklahoma commits the 12th-most in the country (15.2 per game), a blemish that reached a low point during a recent four-game losing streak. Against Baylor last weekend, the Sooners coughed it up a season-high 25 times.
Changing of the guard for a big win
That skid was finally snapped after Moser made a change to his starting five Wednesday. The Sooners pulled out a 72-62 win at West Virginia despite still committing 17 turnovers against the Mountaineers' press.
Junior forward Jacob Groves started over Elijah Harkless, who was shooting 29% and averaging 3.3 turnovers during the losing streak. Groves delivered with 12 points and four rebounds, joining his brother Tanner, a 6-foot-10 efficient scoring machine who leads Oklahoma with 13.1 points per game.
Moser might stick with the winner and keep both brothers starting Saturday.
Prediction
Auburn 79, Oklahoma, 69: After a massive shooting regression at Missouri, Auburn — and especially Jabari Smith — should be due to bounce back.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball vs. Oklahoma: Scouting report, score prediction
