OU's Taj Gray has helped flip the strength of the Sooners this season. AP

How is No. 20 Oklahoma, an average team last season, now one of the most offensively productive squads in the country? How is No. 7 Kansas playing "slower" basketball in 2004-05 than it did in Bill Self's first year? How is No. 11 Arizona less of a scoring machine than in the past two seasons? And how are all three of these teams better off than they were in '03-04?

Herewith lie the answers to those questions.

None of the top-25 trio above changed its coach in the offseason, but each one altered its style of play. The evidence illustrating it comes from three non-traditional, Bill James-on-hardwood statistical categories -- tempo, offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency -- that allow us to understand a team's identity. Now, get a grasp on each stat before proceeding:

Tempo: The number of offensive possessions a team averages per 40 minutes
Offensive Efficiency: The number of points a team averages per 100 possessions
Defensive Efficiency: The number of points a team allows, on average, per 100 possessions

None of the figures are "raw," like standard, NCAA-kept statistics. Since schedules differ greatly from school-to-school, every number here is adjusted to take into account the varying tempos of a team's opponents as well as their efficiency ratings on offense and defense, leaving us with excellent comparative data after ranking the D-I teams 1-330 in each category. (All figures have been compiled by Web stat-man Ken Pomeroy, without whom this analysis would not be possible.)

Oklahoma: Turned inside-out

Oklahoma (Rankings out of 326 D-I teams in '03-04, 330 in '04-05) Year Tempo Rk. Off. Eff. Rk. Def. Eff. Rk. '03-04 253 115 16 '04-05 228 19 15 Diff. +25 +96 +1

Head coach Kelvin Sampson called '03-04 "a rebuilding season." The Sooners lost in the NIT's second round, and their top four scorers, Jason Detrick, Drew Lavender, De'Angelo Alexander and Lawrence McKenzie, were all guards. Forward Kevin Bookout, then OU's top offensive threat, played just 13 games due to injury and Jabahri Brown, the highest-scoring frontcourt regular, averaged just 7.1 points.

The Sooners are sufficiently built this season -- they're an NCAA lock at 22-6 -- and still in the running for the Big 12 regular-season title. They didn't adjust their pace, which remains leaden (it was ranked 253rd in '03-04 and 228th now, with 66.4 possessions per 40 minutes) or their level of defensive efficiency (it was ranked 16th then and 15th now).

Oklahoma simply flipped the script on offense -- and its efficiency skyrocketed. "Last year everything we did on offense was outside-in," Sampson said, "and this year everything is inside-out."

The scoring scales are now tipped toward the frontcourt: Juco-transfer forward Taj Gray is the Sooners' leading scorer with 14.8 points per game, and a healthy Bookout is the third-leading points man with 11.6 per game. OU's field-goal percentage has vaulted from a Big 12-worst 41 last season to 49 this season, good for second-best in the conference behind Oklahoma State. The Sooners' offensive-efficiency rating, the best sign of heightened production, has jumped nearly 100 spots in the national pecking order, from 115th to 19th. The Sooners now average 114.1 points per 100 possessions, as opposed to 103.2 last season.

The difference, according to Sampson? "It's called players, and not plays," he said. "Our offense hasn't changed much here over the years." Gray is not the only fresh face: guard Terrell Everett, another juco transfer, is averaging 12.3 points per game, and freshman guard David Godbold has scored 43 points in OU's past three games, all victories. The inside-out attack has opened things up for the Sooners' late-blooming backcourt, which was under-producing early in the season but has keyed the Sooners' current five-game wining streak.

"It makes everyone better," Sampson said of his newly efficient froncourt. "It's like in football -- if all you can do is run, they just stick nine guys in the box. This year we have a perimeter and a post attack. It's a lot easier to watch."

And it's much harder to defend.