Oklahoma Basketball's Golden (State) Formula for Success

Oklahoma might not have been a national title favorite coming into the season, but a dominant, 23-point win over No. 9 Villanova, makes the 6-0 Sooners look like the best team in the country. When you consider who they've beaten and how they've done it—a six-point win over Memphis, a 17-point win over Wisconsin—nobody has been more impressive through the first month of the season, and the numbers corroborate that, as KenPom.com ranks OU No. 1 nationally.

How are they doing it? With an active defense and an offense that plays like the best team in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors.

In fact, Oklahoma's whole philosophy is Warriors-esque. While the Sooners do play with a true center—unlike Golden State—he isn't a major part of the game plan on either side of the ball. Coach Lon Kruger opts to get his best players on the court, which often means a guard-and-power-forward-based offense. No true center gets more than 36 percent of the minutes.

The resulting offense is fast and efficient: OU averages 73.9 possessions per game, which ranks 38th nationally; it would rank fifth without the game against plodding Wisconsin to skew the numbers. The Sooners love to run the fast break and, more important, they take good shots when they do. OU uses its athletic lineup either to take a fast-break three or to get to the rim as quickly as possible, leaving much of the mid-range game—the least efficient shot in basketball—out of their arsenal. They shoot fast-break threes (23 percent) almost as often as they shoot all mid-range shots (25 percent), according to Shot Analytics.

The Sooners' shot chart has lots of fire in all the right places. This is possible with versatile players like the 6-foot-8 Ryan Spangler, one of the Big 12's best players on the boards who can also shoot from anywhere on the floor—he has an effective field goal percentage of 67.8, which ranks in the top 50 in the entire country.

The similarity between OU and Golden State's of play is reflected in their numbers:

While Golden State has had more shots and therefore spread out its mid-range game a bit more, its hot spots concentrate in the same places as Oklahoma's chart.

The Sooners also have the top-ranked defense in the country, according to KenPom.com. They're holding opponents to just .89 points per possession, and teams have just a 37.1 eFG% against them. Nobody is shooting even close to average against the Sooners anywhere on the floor.

This is again thanks to Oklahoma's versatile lineup. The three-point defense will likely cool off, but OU's length and athleticism is on full display in this chart. Opponents can't come at this team with just one thing, because OU will hit them with another. Spangler can guard wings or centers; 6-foot-4 Buddy Hield can guard point guards or small forwards. The team doesn't need a great rim protector, in the traditional sense, to play well on defense—its best one, true center Akolda Manyang, only plays 23.3 percent of available minutes.

Teams like this have been successful in college basketball before—look no further than OU conference rival Iowa State last season—but no teams have been this successful on both ends of the court while committing to such an athletic of play.

Oklahoma might not have Steph Curry, but it's brought a taste of Golden State to college basketball. Right now, it's a recipe for winning.