Sooner04
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DISCLAIMER: These thoughts are not from a professional. They are from an unabashed Sooner BBall fanatic whose glasses are tinted heavily crimson. I’m not a coach, I’m not an analyst, I’m just a fan who used to write and misses the task. My knowledge of the X’s and O’s of the sport is tenuous at best. My predictions often prove folly. I once fell hard for Ray Willis. But I do love my Sooners hoopsters, often much too much. Feel free to critique but, please, be gentle.
It’s an indictment of our previous regime (thanks, Felton) that we now have to use decent D-1 programs like Oral Roberts as barometers for our progress, but such is life when your program has been gutted by a Jay-Z listening, miscreant-recruiting dunderhead.
But here we are! And this is life today in the LNC and, you know, it isn’t all that bad. We showed signs tonight of being a pretty resilient basketball team. We suffered through ten minutes of sleepwalking and followed it up with ten minutes of upper-echelon Big 12 basketball. We emerged from the locker room in the second half and appeared to have carved up another Thanksgiving dinner over the break, so sluggish was our start. But then we followed THAT up with ten more minutes of active, lead-expanding ball.
If sound, efficient basketball for 40 minutes warms your innards then you were shedding layers almost as quickly as you were looking for blankets. But if you were looking for stretches, little clues as to the ceiling of this team as the season wears on, then you were treated to some nice glimpses. I’ve always thought the sign of a good team is its ability to keep opponents at arm’s length when things get dicey and to pull away from your enemy when things get rolling. Several times tonight ORU would cut the lead to seven or eight but we never failed to find an answer. Even better, those answers often came from surprising contributors, be it an offensive board and bucket from C. J. Washington or a contested trey from Tyler Neal. Our starting five is pretty solid, but with Calvin Newell leaving to be closer to home (rumor has it he’s selling ocean front property in the suburbs of Albuquerque) we’re going to need contributions from the bench. Tonight, be it by C. J, or Tyler or Barry Honore, rest easy knowing they certainly answered the bell.
This wasn’t a Renoir out there though. ORU missed more bunnies than a heavily armed Elmer Fudd. They had lots of good looks, and lots of those good looks rattled out. We turned the ball over at some incredibly inopportune times. Our performance against ORU’s press late in the game would make even the most grizzled of nuns weep. But every time you’d glance at the scoreboard and think, “if they get a bucket here it’s going to get interesting…” we’d get a stop. There’s something to be said for that. Every time they’d cut it down to collar-tightening margins we had any number of guys willing to step up and take a shot. There’s something to be said for that too.
These guys play hard and they play together. We’re not going to set the world on fire, and we’ve got obvious flaws. We’re not going to win the conference, but you can bet Uncle Fred’s mortgage that we’re not the 9th best team in a 10-team Big 12 Conference. Bring on the Hogs!
SCORING BREAKDOWN:
1st: 9 [Yoi,]
2nd: 25 [La-la-loi La-la-loi,]
3rd: 15 [La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi]
4th: 24 [Bump Baaaaa!]
LEADING SCORERS:
Steven Pledger: 17
Andrew Fitzgerald: 16
Cameron Clark: 16
LEADING REBOUNDERS:
Cameron Clark: 8
Romero Osby: 7
C. J. Washington: 6
PLUSES:
1. Cameron Clark: Against Sacramento State, it was Steven Pledger with the uber-efficient game. Tonight it was the pride of Grayson County coming through with a gorgeous stat line: 16 points on a mere eight shots, eight rebounds and two assists. To top it off, he’s also good for one jaw-dropping dunk a game. Tonight he channeled Clyde “the Glide” Drexler.
2. Steven Pledger: 17 points on a night he failed to make either of his two attempts from deep. That’s big-time progress. There were games last year where he’d rarely, if ever, drop a toe inside the arc, but tonight he took nine attempts from close range, making six of them. Three boards, three assists and nothing but twine on his five free throw attempts. Kid has been awfully consistent so far. Eager to see how this translates to Big 12 play.
3. C. J. Washington: I doubt we ever see another half out of C. J. as good as tonight’s opening stanza. I cannot recall how many boards he had in the opening 20 minutes, but I do know he had eight points in that time frame. But his game was well-rounded, and his post defense was very sound. We’d be foolish to expect contributions like this every night, but an unabashed fan can dream of the possibilities.
4. Shot selection: From where I sat, ORU looked pretty big. At least bigger than us, but not so big that we didn’t pursue good shots from within the paint and barely beyond. I wonder how long it’s been since we played a game while shooting only seven three-pointers. Our reward for working the ball inside was a very efficient percentage. 50 percent for the night looks awfully impressive, especially when one recalls our frigid start in the opening ten minutes.
5. Free-throw Shooting: 16 of 20. Deelish!
MINUSES:
1. Calvin Newell: Closer to home? Good grief.
2. Casey Arent: Sigh. Why so hurried? If you get a rebound, just get it back out to the perimeter. 0-3 from three feet or less isn’t going to garner him much meaningful playing time.
3. Attendance: I love the fans that do come, and the fans that do come are loud, but I just can’t get over how few show up. As I write this I’m watching 15,000 purple-clad loons cheering their heads off for K-State in Wichita. If we played somebody from the Big East tonight in Tulsa do you think we’d have 15,000 in the building? Please, stifle your chuckles.
4. Scott Sutton: Lovely suit. Great pinstripe. Atrocious tie.
I’m really enjoying watching the improvement of this club and the wave of guys who step up from night to night. Didn’t get much offensively from Romero Osby or Sam Grooms tonight, but other guys picked up the slack. I’m still very concerned about our depth because I just don’t see seven guys being enough. Just a little help, somebody who could be that solid eighth man, would get this team much closer to turning the corner. Now is not the time to be thin with Arkansas arriving in about 40 hours.
All systems will have to be a go to offset their ball pressure. I’m anxious to see how we handle it. Football season is over. Landry has, hopefully, befuddled us for the last time. Come out and watch some basketball on Saturday! Just make sure you wash your hands before you head home. There’ll be some pigs in the house.
Thank you for your time.
It’s an indictment of our previous regime (thanks, Felton) that we now have to use decent D-1 programs like Oral Roberts as barometers for our progress, but such is life when your program has been gutted by a Jay-Z listening, miscreant-recruiting dunderhead.
But here we are! And this is life today in the LNC and, you know, it isn’t all that bad. We showed signs tonight of being a pretty resilient basketball team. We suffered through ten minutes of sleepwalking and followed it up with ten minutes of upper-echelon Big 12 basketball. We emerged from the locker room in the second half and appeared to have carved up another Thanksgiving dinner over the break, so sluggish was our start. But then we followed THAT up with ten more minutes of active, lead-expanding ball.
If sound, efficient basketball for 40 minutes warms your innards then you were shedding layers almost as quickly as you were looking for blankets. But if you were looking for stretches, little clues as to the ceiling of this team as the season wears on, then you were treated to some nice glimpses. I’ve always thought the sign of a good team is its ability to keep opponents at arm’s length when things get dicey and to pull away from your enemy when things get rolling. Several times tonight ORU would cut the lead to seven or eight but we never failed to find an answer. Even better, those answers often came from surprising contributors, be it an offensive board and bucket from C. J. Washington or a contested trey from Tyler Neal. Our starting five is pretty solid, but with Calvin Newell leaving to be closer to home (rumor has it he’s selling ocean front property in the suburbs of Albuquerque) we’re going to need contributions from the bench. Tonight, be it by C. J, or Tyler or Barry Honore, rest easy knowing they certainly answered the bell.
This wasn’t a Renoir out there though. ORU missed more bunnies than a heavily armed Elmer Fudd. They had lots of good looks, and lots of those good looks rattled out. We turned the ball over at some incredibly inopportune times. Our performance against ORU’s press late in the game would make even the most grizzled of nuns weep. But every time you’d glance at the scoreboard and think, “if they get a bucket here it’s going to get interesting…” we’d get a stop. There’s something to be said for that. Every time they’d cut it down to collar-tightening margins we had any number of guys willing to step up and take a shot. There’s something to be said for that too.
These guys play hard and they play together. We’re not going to set the world on fire, and we’ve got obvious flaws. We’re not going to win the conference, but you can bet Uncle Fred’s mortgage that we’re not the 9th best team in a 10-team Big 12 Conference. Bring on the Hogs!
SCORING BREAKDOWN:
1st: 9 [Yoi,]
2nd: 25 [La-la-loi La-la-loi,]
3rd: 15 [La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi La-la-loi]
4th: 24 [Bump Baaaaa!]
LEADING SCORERS:
Steven Pledger: 17
Andrew Fitzgerald: 16
Cameron Clark: 16
LEADING REBOUNDERS:
Cameron Clark: 8
Romero Osby: 7
C. J. Washington: 6
PLUSES:
1. Cameron Clark: Against Sacramento State, it was Steven Pledger with the uber-efficient game. Tonight it was the pride of Grayson County coming through with a gorgeous stat line: 16 points on a mere eight shots, eight rebounds and two assists. To top it off, he’s also good for one jaw-dropping dunk a game. Tonight he channeled Clyde “the Glide” Drexler.
2. Steven Pledger: 17 points on a night he failed to make either of his two attempts from deep. That’s big-time progress. There were games last year where he’d rarely, if ever, drop a toe inside the arc, but tonight he took nine attempts from close range, making six of them. Three boards, three assists and nothing but twine on his five free throw attempts. Kid has been awfully consistent so far. Eager to see how this translates to Big 12 play.
3. C. J. Washington: I doubt we ever see another half out of C. J. as good as tonight’s opening stanza. I cannot recall how many boards he had in the opening 20 minutes, but I do know he had eight points in that time frame. But his game was well-rounded, and his post defense was very sound. We’d be foolish to expect contributions like this every night, but an unabashed fan can dream of the possibilities.
4. Shot selection: From where I sat, ORU looked pretty big. At least bigger than us, but not so big that we didn’t pursue good shots from within the paint and barely beyond. I wonder how long it’s been since we played a game while shooting only seven three-pointers. Our reward for working the ball inside was a very efficient percentage. 50 percent for the night looks awfully impressive, especially when one recalls our frigid start in the opening ten minutes.
5. Free-throw Shooting: 16 of 20. Deelish!
MINUSES:
1. Calvin Newell: Closer to home? Good grief.
2. Casey Arent: Sigh. Why so hurried? If you get a rebound, just get it back out to the perimeter. 0-3 from three feet or less isn’t going to garner him much meaningful playing time.
3. Attendance: I love the fans that do come, and the fans that do come are loud, but I just can’t get over how few show up. As I write this I’m watching 15,000 purple-clad loons cheering their heads off for K-State in Wichita. If we played somebody from the Big East tonight in Tulsa do you think we’d have 15,000 in the building? Please, stifle your chuckles.
4. Scott Sutton: Lovely suit. Great pinstripe. Atrocious tie.
I’m really enjoying watching the improvement of this club and the wave of guys who step up from night to night. Didn’t get much offensively from Romero Osby or Sam Grooms tonight, but other guys picked up the slack. I’m still very concerned about our depth because I just don’t see seven guys being enough. Just a little help, somebody who could be that solid eighth man, would get this team much closer to turning the corner. Now is not the time to be thin with Arkansas arriving in about 40 hours.
All systems will have to be a go to offset their ball pressure. I’m anxious to see how we handle it. Football season is over. Landry has, hopefully, befuddled us for the last time. Come out and watch some basketball on Saturday! Just make sure you wash your hands before you head home. There’ll be some pigs in the house.
Thank you for your time.
