Sooner04
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- May 15, 2009
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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.
I was supposed to be in California supporting our Sooners. Had the hotel booked, and dreams of Lawry's danced in my head. But then I knocked up the wife and her OBGYN wouldn't clear her to fly. So here I sit in Bella Vista, Arkansas, visiting the in-laws, while the Mrs. has hormones bellowing from every orifice when I COULD have been sipping Corona on the shores of Newport Beach. Such is life. It often finds ways to knee you in the most tender of spots. It has a way of sending projectiles straight to your junk.
And then the game tipped off and we got a true blessing delivered to our souls on this balmy Thanksgiving. For the first time in I have NO idea when, we imposed our will on an unsuspecting opponent on a neutral floor. You saw it all over the second half when it manifested itself in open shots for us and gym shorts tugged by them.
This was no tour de force, mind you. For 12 minutes of the second half we looked totally poised to break this thing wide open only to jack a needless tough look or clank an easy charity shot. Instead of a quick run, we resorted to the pugilistic pursuit of the body. We ratcheted up the pace and turned the game into a complete mess. Sure, we turned it over a few times, but we took a Washington State team that had shot 64% in the first half and morphed them into a bunch of shot-bricking, tongue-wagging, gift-giving rubes.
35 minutes into the contest we made a few shots and they missed a few more, and what had been a see-saw affair turned into a double-digit cushion. We spent the entire first half getting carved to pieces in the interior, and by the end of the game their oxygen-deprived brains had them making a lone pass then firing a deep jumper which they often bricked. They tried to play Sooner basketball with us, and they got smoked.
It's past 1 AM, I'm stuck in a town overrun by geriatrics, and you cannot wipe the smile off my face. We won, and we won it OUR way. No luck, no off night from the opponent; we just whipped them into submission. How defeated were they at the end? They never even tried to foul us, even though we spent the majority of the night missing more free throws than we made.
SCORING BREAKDOWN:
1st: 15 [she may be right]
2nd: 23 [she may be fine]
3rd: 14 [she may get love but she won't get mine]
4th: 22 [cuz I got you.]
SCORING LEADERS:
Calvin Newell: 18
Steven Pledger: 14
Cameron Clark: 11
REBOUNDING LEADERS:
Andrew Fitzgerald: 7
Romero Osby: 6
PLUSES:
1. Lon Kruger: From day one he told us that we were going to push tempo and get up and down the floor. Ladies, gentlemen, bigabd; I'm here to tell you that we now have an identity.
2. Sam Grooms: Point guard play doesn't get much better than that. Nine points, ten assists and a measly ONE turnover. When we needed to run a little clock, he pulled the ball out back beyond the arc. When we needed to survey the interior of the defense, he navigated the paint like a young Magellan. And when we needed somebody to hit some shots in the first half when Wazzu was trying to keep us beyond arm's length, he showed us his range. What a game!
3. Calvin Newell: The Spark is a tough guy to rein in because sometimes he thinks he's feeling it when maybe he's not as far into the zone as he thinks. But it's hard to fault a guy who has the intestinal fortitude to take the big shots. Calvin wants to be that guy, and I think his nifty steal under our bucket for a lay-up took a ton of the remaining salt out of the Cougars. Wouldn't mind him shoring up that shot selection from time to time, but that's me nitpicking at 1:30 AM.
4. Steven Pledger: He was at his best when Wazzu was at theirs. His early barrage kept us in the game when we otherwise would've been staring up a monster task.
MINUSES:
1. Carl Blair: Looks totally inept out there. I know he's better than that, but tonight he was atrocious.
2. Andrew Fitzgerald: This is me really nitpicking, but I wished often that he was a little tougher down low. He missed a bunny, clanked two free throws and couldn't corral a defensive board that would've prevented a Wazzu lay-up in what appeared to be the beginning of their final run. Fortunately he went back down the floor and made a few shots of his own to make up for it. I commend him thoroughly for getting after it on the boards. The Drew Fitzgerald Abacus for Rebound Counting may have to be permanently retired.
3. Casey Arent: Plays hard, but has got to be better at finishing. You can tell he's just hoping right now that the shots go in, and when you do that they often don't.
4. Free Throw Shooting: 11 of 18. For a while that looked to be as good a reason as any for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I'm just so jazzed we won this game. We've played in tourneys like this for years and other than the NIT with Blake Griffin you have to go back a decade to find us winning a game like this (I'm referring to the Top of the World Classic in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the fall of 2000.........Aaron McGhee!) To go out to Anaheim in a dead gym and impose our style on somebody is so mind-blowing that I'm tempted to solicit some medicinal marijuana from a sufferer of cataracts in hopes of keeping this high going all night.
But that's a pipe dream. I'll just have to settle for waiting 22 hours until we tip off again. Will Santa Clara bog us down? Wazzu turned the ball over 22 times, will the Broncos dare play at such a frenetic pace? Will Newell again shine off the bench, or will the steadiness of Sam Grooms guide us to the finals? I cannot wait to find out.
Thank you for your time.
I was supposed to be in California supporting our Sooners. Had the hotel booked, and dreams of Lawry's danced in my head. But then I knocked up the wife and her OBGYN wouldn't clear her to fly. So here I sit in Bella Vista, Arkansas, visiting the in-laws, while the Mrs. has hormones bellowing from every orifice when I COULD have been sipping Corona on the shores of Newport Beach. Such is life. It often finds ways to knee you in the most tender of spots. It has a way of sending projectiles straight to your junk.
And then the game tipped off and we got a true blessing delivered to our souls on this balmy Thanksgiving. For the first time in I have NO idea when, we imposed our will on an unsuspecting opponent on a neutral floor. You saw it all over the second half when it manifested itself in open shots for us and gym shorts tugged by them.
This was no tour de force, mind you. For 12 minutes of the second half we looked totally poised to break this thing wide open only to jack a needless tough look or clank an easy charity shot. Instead of a quick run, we resorted to the pugilistic pursuit of the body. We ratcheted up the pace and turned the game into a complete mess. Sure, we turned it over a few times, but we took a Washington State team that had shot 64% in the first half and morphed them into a bunch of shot-bricking, tongue-wagging, gift-giving rubes.
35 minutes into the contest we made a few shots and they missed a few more, and what had been a see-saw affair turned into a double-digit cushion. We spent the entire first half getting carved to pieces in the interior, and by the end of the game their oxygen-deprived brains had them making a lone pass then firing a deep jumper which they often bricked. They tried to play Sooner basketball with us, and they got smoked.
It's past 1 AM, I'm stuck in a town overrun by geriatrics, and you cannot wipe the smile off my face. We won, and we won it OUR way. No luck, no off night from the opponent; we just whipped them into submission. How defeated were they at the end? They never even tried to foul us, even though we spent the majority of the night missing more free throws than we made.
SCORING BREAKDOWN:
1st: 15 [she may be right]
2nd: 23 [she may be fine]
3rd: 14 [she may get love but she won't get mine]
4th: 22 [cuz I got you.]
SCORING LEADERS:
Calvin Newell: 18
Steven Pledger: 14
Cameron Clark: 11
REBOUNDING LEADERS:
Andrew Fitzgerald: 7
Romero Osby: 6
PLUSES:
1. Lon Kruger: From day one he told us that we were going to push tempo and get up and down the floor. Ladies, gentlemen, bigabd; I'm here to tell you that we now have an identity.
2. Sam Grooms: Point guard play doesn't get much better than that. Nine points, ten assists and a measly ONE turnover. When we needed to run a little clock, he pulled the ball out back beyond the arc. When we needed to survey the interior of the defense, he navigated the paint like a young Magellan. And when we needed somebody to hit some shots in the first half when Wazzu was trying to keep us beyond arm's length, he showed us his range. What a game!
3. Calvin Newell: The Spark is a tough guy to rein in because sometimes he thinks he's feeling it when maybe he's not as far into the zone as he thinks. But it's hard to fault a guy who has the intestinal fortitude to take the big shots. Calvin wants to be that guy, and I think his nifty steal under our bucket for a lay-up took a ton of the remaining salt out of the Cougars. Wouldn't mind him shoring up that shot selection from time to time, but that's me nitpicking at 1:30 AM.
4. Steven Pledger: He was at his best when Wazzu was at theirs. His early barrage kept us in the game when we otherwise would've been staring up a monster task.
MINUSES:
1. Carl Blair: Looks totally inept out there. I know he's better than that, but tonight he was atrocious.
2. Andrew Fitzgerald: This is me really nitpicking, but I wished often that he was a little tougher down low. He missed a bunny, clanked two free throws and couldn't corral a defensive board that would've prevented a Wazzu lay-up in what appeared to be the beginning of their final run. Fortunately he went back down the floor and made a few shots of his own to make up for it. I commend him thoroughly for getting after it on the boards. The Drew Fitzgerald Abacus for Rebound Counting may have to be permanently retired.
3. Casey Arent: Plays hard, but has got to be better at finishing. You can tell he's just hoping right now that the shots go in, and when you do that they often don't.
4. Free Throw Shooting: 11 of 18. For a while that looked to be as good a reason as any for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I'm just so jazzed we won this game. We've played in tourneys like this for years and other than the NIT with Blake Griffin you have to go back a decade to find us winning a game like this (I'm referring to the Top of the World Classic in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the fall of 2000.........Aaron McGhee!) To go out to Anaheim in a dead gym and impose our style on somebody is so mind-blowing that I'm tempted to solicit some medicinal marijuana from a sufferer of cataracts in hopes of keeping this high going all night.
But that's a pipe dream. I'll just have to settle for waiting 22 hours until we tip off again. Will Santa Clara bog us down? Wazzu turned the ball over 22 times, will the Broncos dare play at such a frenetic pace? Will Newell again shine off the bench, or will the steadiness of Sam Grooms guide us to the finals? I cannot wait to find out.
Thank you for your time.
But the first half, even though we were down 2, had me confident that we would beat these guys. They were shooting lights out and we were having mental errors on D. Neither of those would continue.
