SHAWNEE – The final two games of the regular season come this week for Oklahoma Baptist. On Feb. 23, the Bison will visit Southeastern Oklahoma State before hosting East Central on Feb. 25 for Senior Night. Both games are slated for 5:30 p.m. tip-offs.
OBU is sitting in fifth place in the GAC standings with a 14-12 overall record and 10-10 mark in league play. Previously this season, the green and gold dialed up wins over the Storm and the Tigers by 69-62 and 74-71 scores, respectively.
The Bison Sports Network will provide coverage of both games with Todd Miller and Scott Wanish on the broadcast.
Postseason Clinched
A 55-50 win over Arkansas-Monticello put the Bison into the Great American Conference Tournament. It marks the third time OBU will be in the eight-team conference tourney. This year's competition, which will start March 2 at FireLake Arena, currently has the Bison as the No. 5 seed. If the tourney were to start tomorrow, OBU would face Arkansas Tech. Stay tuned over the next several days to see who the green and gold will face in the GAC quarterfinals.
Needing Improvement
In OBU's last seven games, the team's offense has not eclipsed 60 points in any of those contests. As a result, the Bison have lost six of seven. OBU has averaged 52.4 points per game, shot 37 percent from the field, 32 percent from three and an unlikely 69 percent from the free throw line. And only one player,
Jaedyn Getman, has averaged double-digit scoring (13.4). OBU's next-best producer is
Jill Leslie who has scored 8.3 points, grabbed 5.6 rebounds and shot 51.1 percent from the field.
Plenty to Play For
While the Bison have already clinched a postseason berth, this year's squad can still attain the most wins in the
Bo Overton era with a positive result this week or next week in the GAC Tournament. OBU, in Overton's third year, have gone from four wins to 14 (last year) and now 14 here in 2022-23. Three more wins will match the most-ever attained in the D2 era. Currently, the most wins notched in the D2 era was 17 during the 2015-16 campaign.
Stealing is Good
At least on the basketball court steals are good. Last week against UAM and Southern Arkansas, the Bison notched 16 steals. That boosted the team's season total to 212. It marks the fourth time in the D2 era that a Bison squad attained at least 200 steals. The best season total to date is 269 attained in the 2018-19 season. Nine different players this season have notched at least 13 steals. Leading the way is
Madison Chambers with 42 followed by senior teammate
Melissa Southard (27).
Going for the Sweep
Thursday night's game at Southeastern presents the opportunity for a season sweep over the Savage Storm. Since competition against SE began in January of 2016, the green and gold have not won both regular-season games against Darin Grover's program.
The Rebounding Key
In OBU's previous game against Southeastern on December 10, the Bison dialed up a 43-26 rebounding edge. That proved big as the green and gold held a 16-9 second-chance points advantage. The final margin of victory: seven points (69-62). In that game at the Noble Complex,
Jill Leslie tallied 18 points and seven rebounds while
Madison Chambers contributed 11 points. Plus, senior
Malou Savanna came off the bench to score 10 with a career-high seven boards.
Scouting Southeastern
Southeastern has lost three in a row heading into the final week of regular-season competition. Most recently, SE fell 68-59 at Henderson State to drop its record to 7-18. The seven wins are currently the fewest in the Darin Grover era who has been there for 17 seasons.
Southeastern's offense has been an issue all year long. It ranks last (12th) in the GAC in scoring at 59.5 points per game. They are also 11th in three-point field goal percentage (29.8%).
Defensively, SE has been pretty good. With an opponent average of 64.0 points per game, the Savage Storm rank fourth in the league in scoring defense.
Caitlin Kobiske and Briley Moon are two of the best scorers in the GAC. Kobiske is fifth (17.1) while Moon sits in seventh (14.8). In the previous matchup with OBU, those two combined for 19 points and 12-of-27 shooting. Additionally, Moon and Kobiske rank sixth and seventh, respectively, in free throw percentage. Each are hitting at least 83.3 percent from the charity stripe.
Scouting East Central
East Central has lost back-to-back games to Ouachita and Henderson and moved its record to 10-14 and 7-13 in the GAC. They are currently a game back from the eight-place slot for the GAC Tournament.
The Tigers' best statistical mark is in the turnover margin category. They are +3.04 which is good for third in the GAC. After that, ECU's best mark is fourth in free throw percentage (74.7%).
On the offensive and defensive end, ECU is ninth in scoring (64.3 ppg) and scoring defense (68.3).
Mackenzie Crusoe has been the Tigers' most consistent offensive player this year. She is 14th with a 13.0 scoring average. In the previous game against the Bison on Dec. 17, she scored 12 with eight assists.
Kate Ogle is slotted fifth in the GAC in blocked shots. She's got 21 this year and 1.0 per-game average.
