Pre-season All-American Blake Griffin took advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves early in the first half and the Sooners did not look back as they coasted to an easy 78-52 victory in front of 8,167 fans on Wednesday night.
As a matter of fact the smaller Maine squad had no answer at all down low for Griffin and he opened the contest by scoring OU’s first eight points.
Griffin would score 22 points and pull down 10 rebounds in the win.
“I thought we brought it at the very beginning and kept it going from there,” Griffin explained.
The Sooners are now 9-0 on the young season and will face off against a 5-3 Utah team on Saturday afternoon. The Utes rank as one of the top team’s in the country shooting the ball.
OU held Maine to under 30% from the field and if they have a similar performance in their next game they should have no problem handing Utah their fourth loss.
“I thought it was another strong defensive effort,” Oklahoma head coach Jeff Capel said of the Sooners performance on Wednesday. “Their coach does a good job with their team, but I just thought our athleticism overwhelmed them a little today.”
The blowout allowed Capel to give an extended look at some of his bench and he admitted he was pretty pleased with how some of his reserves looked, especially back-up guard Ray Willis who nailed down 13 points.
OU reserves played 104 of a possible 200 minutes and no starter played more than 26 minutes.
“I thought they did a solid job,” Capel said of his bench. “Obviously Ray (Willis) brought a lot of energy to the offensive end. He is a very talented offensive player. Orlando (Allen) did a good job of protecting our basket and being a really good defensive presence for us.”
We have got to get Ryan (Wright) playing a little better. He is still knocking off some rust. I thought Kyle Cannon did a good job, especially on the defensive end.”
Freshman guard Willie Warren added 19 points.
“My three ball was not looking that nice at the beginning,” Warren said with a smile. “Blake draws a lot of attention down there, so it is easy for our guards to penetrate lanes.”