OU senior Jalon Moore becoming a bigger leader with each game
Even before the OU season started, all eyes went toward Jalon Moore. Heck, OU wasn’t bashful about it. Anything that promoted this upcoming season? Moore was front and center.
This is his team. But sometimes that transition can be a little more difficult than you might think. Especially for someone as a power forward.
A point guard, yea, you get it. They’re directing traffic, leading the team. But this OU squad will go as Moore goes. So when he goes on a dunk-a-thon like last week, everybody follows suit.
He is still that energetic force, with freakish athletic ability. However, he has had to become a lot more in recent months.
Moore continues to evolve, and that’s a great thing for OU basketball.
“The best thing he has done is he hasn’t put too much pressure on himself to where he feels like – his leadership has been good,” head coach Porter Moser said. “He’s remained a positive energy through different things. And we have to continue to work on that. Sometimes guys that have never had that role of leadership feel like they got to do everything, and they don’t. He doesn’t. By him being great at what he does, it’s great leadership as it is. Him having a great mentality, that’s great leadership.
“He’s got to have an unbelievable, high-energy attitude every day. He’s got to be the hardest worker in the gym, and he’s got to really be great at what he’s good at. And he’s checking all three of those boxes every day.”
Moore has come alive, especially in the second half of the two most recent games. And he gets the crowd going, as usual, like he did with five dunks last weekend.
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Still a waiting game for Jones, Goodine
OU has had to adapt all season because it hasn’t two major pieces. Transfer Jadon Jones hasn’t played this season, dealing with a back injury.
Transfer wing Brycen Goodine made a huge initial impression before spraining his ankle in the first game. He hasn’t seen the floor since.
And sounds like, well, maybe OU will have to go game No. 4 without them as well.
“Jadon is definitely out,” Moser said. “Brycen is just kind of at a stalemate with him. It’s a push-pull. He starts practicing, it pulls back on him. He hasn’t been back full-go yet.”
Scouting East Texas A&M
It’s OU vs. East Texas A&M 7 p.m. Thursday at Lloyd Noble Center.
“A win. I’m looking for a win, and anybody who looks at that score last night that didn’t watch the game is not doing their homework. That game, I watched how hard they played against a two-time defending champion. They forced 19 turnovers at UConn. They had 17 offensive rebounds at UConn. Switch everything. They’re going to switch one through five, they’re going to play extremely hard. They’re going to go downhill offensively. I know UConn had 11 blocks at the rim, and UConn I think is one of the top two or three teams in the country, and they’re a defending national champion—two-time—in a sold-out arena, East Texas A&M was not one bit scared.”
