Feature: Why Norman is my Favorite Sleeper
Twentieth-ranked Norman High became the lowest-ranked team to advance to the 6A West Area Tournament when they defeated Lawton on Friday night.
The Tigers followed that win with a loss against Edmond Memorial in the Region I Championship on Saturday night to take placement in the losers’ bracket at area. And while a loss isn’t necessarily a positive, the Tigers made a case for themselves in the loss to Memorial, where they trailed by as few as four points in the final two minutes of the game.
I have been really fascinated with statistics and trends recently, and Norman’s performance stood out as a significant indicator, statistically, that the Tigers could be a contender for a Championship if they can play the rest of the postseason the way they played against Edmond Memorial.
Below is a two-part argument in Norman’s favor as the most compelling underdog for the Area Tournament.
PART I: Offense
Ben Emmert, a 2020 Norman wing, had 27 points off seven total 3-pointers in the loss to Memorial. Emmert was accountable for nearly 66 percent of Norman’s total 41 points on the night. I checked and double-checked every 6A game I’ve been to this year. No player in a win or loss had a higher percentage of his team’s total points in a game in the 2018-19 season.
Is this good or bad? Having any one player score that many of your points could be viewed as a negative indicator of team legitimacy. How can your team manage when he is on the bench? What if a great defensive team holds him? With those questions in mind, I present two counter-arguments, below:
First, Memorial is the first-ranked team in the state and probably the best defensive team also. A few weeks ago, Memorial defeated then-first-ranked Edmond Santa Fe in the championship of the McGuinness Classic. After that game, Memorial Head Coach Shane Cowherd gave me one of my favorite pieces from a coach, ever; Cowherd said:
“Defense travels every night, it doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting the ball well or not. . .If you’re defending well, you give yourself an opportunity to win. Tonight, we only shot the ball 35 percent, but we held Santa Fe to 32 percent.”
That’s how good Memorial is defensively. They held the best team in the state to 32 percent shooting. I don’t have their season-wide stats in my lap, but if a scorer was going to have any trouble against a team, Memorial would be that entity. But listen to some of these scores:
@ 6A #6 Norman North | 57-49 W | 1/18/19 |
6A #2 Midwest City (McGuinness Classic) | 65-53 W | 1/11/19 |
6A #1Edmond Santa Fe (McGuinness Classic) | 56-42 W | 1/12/19 |
6A #10 Deer Creek | 61-54 W | 1/18/19 |
6A #13 Deer Creek | 57-42 W | 1/25/19 |
@ 6A #3 Edmond Santa Fe | 57-43 W | 2/5/19 |
6A #11 Edmond North | 69-39 W | 2/8/19 |
@ 6A #6 Norman North | 56-45 W | 2/12/19 |
These are all scores against some of the top-ranked teams in 6A. And while the scoring margin was close in most of these games, players don’t just go off for 27 points against Edmond Memorial.
Second, I would like to nod to Norman’s versatility. While Emmert was the premier scoring option on Saturday, that’s not entirely the case on a night-in, night-out basis. Emmert is inarguably the most consistent, leading scorer on the team, but that’s not to say that other players cannot get their share, also.
Sophomore point guard Jaden Bray has scored in double-figures on many occasions this season and junior wing Jonah Paden has neared the 20-point mark multiple times just in the few times I’ve seen NHS, including a three 3-pointer, 18-point performance against No. 10 Southmoore. Gabe Tucci, Dale Richards, and Connor Goodson have each scored in double-figures, as well.
Most impressively, four Norman scorers landed in double-digits in the scoring margin in a loss to Deer Creek in the McGuinness Classic, and Paden wasn’t far behind with eight.
The Tigers aren’t a one-trick pony, but his teammates recognize when he gets hot.
“Usually when Ben starts hitting shots, we all know we need to feed him,” said Paden after the loss to Memorial. “He started knocked down those shots with peoples’ hands in his face. . . really just made us all get back on defense knowing that we have someone who’s really getting something going on offense.
PART II: Defense
The next important factor for this team is how well they played defensively on Saturday night in the final three quarters of play. In fact, one could even argue that the Tigers out-defensed the best defensive team in the state during those three quarters.
After Memorial opened on a 15-0 run in the first quarter, Norman settled in and started thwarting the Bulldogs defensively. During one twelve-minute period of play, the Tigers held Memorial to just nine points; Norman stopped the best team in the state from accruing double-figured for a span that lasted 38 percent of the night.
That’s a rate of .75 points per minute, which would equate to 24 points for the entire night, had the Tigers played the entire game as they did for that twelve-minute span.
Of course, that pace would be nearly impossible to keep up from the Norman defense, but the same message is communicated with an expanded sample.
If you take the first quarter out of the equation, Norman outscored Memorial 32-29 on Saturday night. If the Tigers could keep this three-quarter pace for another quarter, the Tigers would have held the Bulldogs to 38 points for the night.
Putting those numbers in perspective; I checked every 6A game this year, and the lowest winning score from any team in 6A this year came from No. 2 Booker T. Washington, who defeated No. 6 Sand Springs 41-33 earlier this month.
This means that if Norman would have almost surely beat the best team in the state if they could have played a 32-minute game with the same pace they played for 24 minutes.
In fact, defense may have even been more important to the Tigers on Saturday night. Don’t believe me? Ask the guy who scored 65 percent of his teams’ points.
“Our defensive energy was really, really good tonight,” Emmert said, “especially when we played in the zone. I feel like if we can carry that over, we can make it into the State Tournament.”
Based on the numbers, Emmert may very-well be onto something.
PART III: Verdict
As we bring this editorial to fruition, it’s important to note that while numbers are important, this isn’t Moneyball; not quite, at least. Analytics fail. Norman’s numbers were undoubtedly impressive, but barriers are meant to be broken. If there’s any time for trends to fall off, it’s the next two weeks as the final sixteen teams in the state will battle until one is left remaining on March 9.
Still, it’s almost jaw-dropping that the Tigers journeyed throughout the regular season mostly unranked before squeezing into the 20th spot on Feb. 4. It’s hard to deny some of the performances this team has put up, even considering its 12-13 record. On paper, however, this team is practically on anomaly. For those reasons, Norman is, quite possibly, the most interesting team left in contention.
Did we miss something? DM @McKinnisBryce via Twitter. Or don’t, I don’t get paid enough to hear you complain.