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Bamisile, Sooners find rhythm

First four shots, four made 3-pointers, welcome to the 2022-23 season, Oklahoma men’s basketball team.

After uneven outings to begin the season last week, this is what it’s supposed to look like as OU played its most complete game in a 74-53 win against visiting UNC-Wilmington on Tuesday night at Lloyd Noble Center.

And now OU fans are starting to understand why the staff was so excited about adding transfer Joe Bamisile.

Bamisile scored 12 of his 15 points in the first half and helped the Sooners continue their solid start against a quality Seahawks squad.

“A little relieving, to be honest,” Bamisile said. “It was tough those first couple of games. But you have to stay confident and stay and put in the work. Thankful.”

After beginning his career at Virginia Tech, Bamisile transferred to George Washington before coming to OU for this year.

He’s still finding his place, his role and his ever-growing defensive commitment, but there’s no doubt his athletic ability is something that will be sorely needed for this OU team.

“That's why Joe's here,” head coach Porter Moser said. “He can really score. Sometimes scorers want to score so much that he's got to come in and start letting it come to him. I thought the guys got him some good shots. He was 5-for-8, but he was 5-for-7 before he missed that last one.

“He's really improved his defense, and he just has a confidence about him. We're going to need his scoring. We're going to be a team that's going to need his scoring off the bench. The big thing with guys who can score is just letting it come to him, and I thought Joe let it come to him tonight.”

The Sooners led 37-21 at halftime and never ever had moments of concern in the second half.

Bamisile wasn’t the only one to wake up as sophomore guard C.J. Noland bounced back in his own way with his best outing of the season.

Noland had 11 points and 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.

“It was great,” Noland said. We have a good offense. A lot of us we take the similar shots we took today. Like the doctor said, they were ordered to go in today. It felt great to finally get those threes in and show we could shoot the three as a team.”

OU made 10 of its 23 attempts from 3-point territory.

Tip-ins

*Freshman guard Milos Uzan continues to show he’s comfortable at such an early age. He had four more assists. That was the trend throughout the night as Bijan Cortes added a couple of assists with the Sooners having 19 for the game.

“It was great to see Bijan come in and make some plays,” Moser said. “I thought Bijan had two back-to-back, really nice assists at a key point in the second half. He had the little floater pass to Tanner who dunked it. And then the next time, he looked at them and they came in and he threw a zip to I think C.J. for a 3-pointer. He had back-to-back nice plays and I thought it was great to see Bijan get back in the flow of things.”

* Jalen Hill and Tanner Groves keep showing you can make an imprint in the game without scoring and demanding shots. Neither scored in double-digits but each contributed nine rebounds.

* Depth in the frontcourt is going to be something to monitor the whole way, but Sam Godwin is doing what’s asked of him when his number is called. He had four points, four rebounds and two blocks.

* Freshman Benny Schroder played his first minutes of his career and scored his first field goal of the season.

* Up next: OU (2-1) is back at the LNC vs. South Alabama 7 p.m. Friday.

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