Bryce’s Week 8 favorites

<p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="535632" first="Bijan" last="Cortes"]</strong> | 2021 Kingfisher PG</p> <p>Oklahoma is getting a special player, and there is no denying it.</p> <p>Cortes was excellent finishing shots through pressure Friday night against Carl Albert. Defensively, he repeatedly thieved the ball from opposing ball-handlers and turned it into transition buckets on the other end, either for himself or by distributing down-court to others; both great skills in his arsenal.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="535628" first="Matthew" last="Stone"]</strong> | 2021 Kingfisher SG/SF</p> <p>Cortes may have been the outlet from the steals, but Stone was often the primary disrupter that caused or contributed that led Cortes to steals or transition points. He rushed to traps in Kingfisher’s zone, and he refused to relieve pressure on Carl Albert’s half-court offense.</p> <p>Offensively, Stone was no bystander, either.</p> <p>He converted on a couple of excellent shots out of the dribble, especially one from the elbow with a defender extending in Stone’s face. Primarily, though, he finished easy shots in transition, benefitting from Kingfisher’s defensive excellence.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="1015852" first="Antonio" last="Watson"]</strong> | 2021 Carl Albert PF</p> <p>Watson hit a remarkable seven 3-pointers on seven attempts against Kingfisher, including a stellar fourth quarter in which he hit four shots from deep to keep the Titans in the game late. It was quietly one of the best shooting performances of the season, not just because he was so efficient, but also because of the circumstances under which he remained so calm.</p> <p>It is hard to hyper-analyze how Watson put together such a great shooting performance, other than saying that he just did not miss from long range. He was determined to keep Carl Albert in contention, and from the catch and from the dribble, he sank shots with Kingfisher defenders in his face.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="955384" first="Ethan" last="Scott"]</strong> | 2022 Mustang PG</p> <p>Scott abused Yukon’s defense in the third quarter Saturday.</p> <p>In fact, his second 3-pointer of the third quarter, which came about a minute into the second half, put Mustang up 44-18; Yukon only scored 43 points all night.</p> <p>He knocked down four triples in the third quarter, alone, contributing to the Broncos’ 18-0 run that put them up by 36 as Yukon was unable to recover.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="967377" first="Jacobe" last="Johnson"]</strong> | 2023 Mustang SG</p> <p>Johnson was the catalyst in back-to-back wins on Friday and Saturday night, last week, recording performances of 31 and 22 points against No. 13 Moore and Yukon, respectively.</p> <p>He was surely a primary catalyst in both of those matches, but in the performance I saw against Yukon, Johnson was very aggressive with the consistency that makes him such a talented and touted recruit.</p> <p>He converted on mid-rangers, hit shots from deep, passed down-floor and finished close-up through contact, all while rarely missing.</p> <p>Johnson is as good as gold for Mustang on nights like he had Saturday, and when he pairs with Scott like he did to lead the other three Broncos, this Mustang group can be very difficult to beat.</p>