A couple of thoughts that are really bugging me

[Sooner23]

I even raced home in a stupor to change my avatar, and am now too lazy to change it. Capel raved about him in preseason practice. To be honest, I think at some point you have to just throw a guy out there for extended minutes. What's the worst that can happen, you get run out of the gym and ripped apart by mid-majors? (UTEP is a Sweet 16 team actually, but still)

Yep. Might as well start throwing him out there and seeing if he has a future here or not, because the other guys certainly don't.

 

[outest]

It's Capel's problem. He would let some post play for 10 minutes in a game and then never let them play at all. How can they develop that way? I bet everyone is afraid of making mistake when they are in because Capel wouldn't let them play again at all.

 

[Sam]

I even raced home in a stupor to change my avatar, and am now too lazy to change it. Capel raved about him in preseason practice. To be honest, I think at some point you have to just throw a guy out there for extended minutes. What's the worst that can happen, you get run out of the gym and ripped apart by mid-majors? (UTEP is a Sweet 16 team actually, but still)

We got nothing to lose at Gonzaga, we know what Ryan is giving us. I say throw Orlando and Drew to the wolves vs the Zags. Got to try something.

 

[daqman]

It's Capel's problem. He would let some post play for 10 minutes in a game and then never let them play at all. How can they develop that way? I bet everyone is afraid of making mistake when they are in because Capel wouldn't let them play again at all.

deja vu all over again.

 

[OUsky]

It's Capel's problem. He would let some post play for 10 minutes in a game and then never let them play at all. How can they develop that way? I bet everyone is afraid of making mistake when they are in because Capel wouldn't let them play again at all.

Same thing is happening to Pledger.

 

[WaymanFan]

I still recall Hardrick committing when Capel was the coach. We can't just say oh well he was already on board when Capel got here.

It's irrelevant. Hardrick was a TOP 30 player nationwide following his freshman season. I don't blame Jeff or Kelvin one bit for trying to lock up what seemed like a potential McDonald's All-American. Bottom line is that it is far down the list of recruiting mistakes made by Coach Capel. I just hope (and expect he will) stop making so many of these mistakes.

 

[playmakr]

It's irrelevant. Hardrick was a TOP 30 player nationwide following his freshman season.

He was a project, as was known by anyone who had seem him play. What does a ranking of freshmen even mean? About as meaningless as a preseason poll.

I don't blame Jeff or Kelvin one bit for trying to lock up what seemed like a potential McDonald's All-American.

I guess I blame them more. I don't like offering projects early. Sure, if we are going to wildly base our offers off of freshmen rankings, by all means offer everyone in the Top 30 you think you can get.

 

[outest]

Same thing is happening to Pledger.

One thing about Kelvin's team is that they started out slow because of talent but by March they are as tough as nail. You remember one of Capel's quote "We need to put our best guys on the floor". That does not work because if your best guys are too small. At Division I level, there are too many athletic big guys for that to work. The only problem with Kelvin's team is they are so bored to watch on offense but defense is as tough as nail.

 

[thebigabd]

I can't believe Willie had 26

He got off to the hot start (OU was still losing during that great start), and then I barely noticed him after that. Well, I guess I noticed when he was taking really bad shots and missing wide open three's. He went 3-10 from back there tonight, and a few of those were pretty open. I cringed when that one three hit nothing but the backboard. He didnt get to the line much, so I really cant think of where the 26 came from but I guess you don't pay much attention to a few baskets here and there when you are down 17 the whole second half.

 

[seniorsooner]

Some really food thoughts in this thread and I echo the frustration expressed by many of you. It is time for some accountability from everyone. First, it is time for Capel to stop calling players out in interviews and take a look at himself. He recruited these players. He is responsible for their development. He is responsible for getting them to play defense. Their failures are nothing but his own.

Second, I have had enough of Willie's bs. If he's not 100% committed to this team and ready to put out 100% effort on both ends of the floor he needs to sit until he is. The coaches need to take a stand, and fast. While this season may be lost, I don't want some locker room cancer hindering the development of our young players that we desperately need to improve for the future.

 

[WaymanFan]

He was a project, as was known by anyone who had seem him play. What does a ranking of freshmen even mean? About as meaningless as a preseason poll.


I guess I blame them more. I don't like offering projects early. Sure, if we are going to wildly base our offers off of freshmen rankings, by all means offer everyone in the Top 30 you think you can get.

A guy who is in the top 30 in the country is not a "project" by any stretch of the imagination. For whatever reason, he didn't develop over his last three years (maybe he chose not to work hard, who knows). I guess you can blame Coach Capel for not revoking the offer, but if he's made 15 recruiting mistakes, that wouldn't be anywhere on the list. 9 times out of 10, someone who is one of the top high school players in the country early in their high school career, will turn out to be at least serviceable college players.

I wish Coach had the JUCO magic his two predecessors had. In other words, I'd rather blame him for things he actually deserves blame for.

 

[daqman]

Re: I can't believe Willie had 26

i think he had half of those in the first 5 minutes.
he was scoring well at first.
then he started settling for the 3, and things went downhill from there.

 

[outest]

Some really food thoughts in this thread and I echo the frustration expressed by many of you. It is time for some accountability from everyone. First, it is time for Capel to stop calling players out in interviews and take a look at himself. He recruited these players. He is responsible for their development. He is responsible for getting them to play defense. Their failures are nothing but his own.

Second, I have had enough of Willie's bs. If he's not 100% committed to this team and ready to put out 100% effort on both ends of the floor he needs to sit until he is. The coaches need to take a stand, and fast. While this season may be lost, I don't want some locker room cancer hindering the development of our young players that we desperately need to improve for the future.

Agree wholeheartedly with your pose. I have one more thing to add. I think we need to play Orlando. When he was in the Utah's game briefly, he was able to defend that stiff tall guy from Utah due to his height and weight. Ryan Wright was being exploited and abused by that stiff guy all over.

 

[playmakr]

A guy who is in the top 30 in the country is not a "project" by any strecth of the imagination. For whatever reason, he didn't develop over his last three years. I guess you can blame Coach Capel for not revoking the offer, but if he's made 15 recruiting mistakes, that wouldn't be anywhere on the list. 9 times out of 10, someone who is one of the top high school players in the country early in their high school career, will turn out to be at least serviceable college players.

I disagree. Anyone that watched him play knew he was a complete project, regardless of what some recruiting ranking had him when he was 14 to 15 years old. Kelvin and Capel needed to do a better job evaluating his ability on the floor. I pray they didn't look at where he was ranked as a child and call it a day.

But you keep coming with this ranking of Capel's recruiting mistakes, so keep in mind I'm not trying to speak to some arbitrary hierarchy of mistakes and pegging Hardrick into it. I'm not sure dismissing a recruiting mistake because there are worse ones does a whole lot, if anything, for me.

A guy who is in the top 30 in the country is not a "project" by any strecth of the imagination.

To be clear, that is what I completely disagree with, as it specifically relates to Hardrick. Hoping a guy grows and becomes a better ballplayer is the definition of a project. Heck, even guys that show up in the Top 30 when they are seniors still can be considered a project and the Top 30 often contains guys ranked highly due to potential.

 

[DenverSooner]

Neither Fitz nor Barry are anything more than Gilbert/Stone/Szendrei types, at best. This team desperately needs for Capel to stop filling a roster with Allen/Fitz/Honore/Hardrick types. It is ludicrous for OU to have four scholarships going to such mediocre players. None of those guys should ever be more than the 3rd or 4th big at OU.

Stone played well for four years. Gilbert was a major contributor.

When does it become the coach? It wasn't his fault year one, well what about year 4. Whose fault is it that OU only has 2 seniors on its roster.

 

[seniorsooner]

I like Orlando. I think the guy could give us 10 minutes a game of "enforcer" style play and we desperately need that. The only two things that concern me are his conditioning, which is lacking, and where his head is at.

 

[SoonerfanTU]

Stone played well for four years. Gilbert was a major contributor.

When does it become the coach? It wasn't his fault year one, well what about year 4. Whose fault is it that OU only has 2 seniors on its roster.

And Stone never played on anything more than a pretty good OU team. Not blaming him, but if he is starting, he needs to be your worst starter by far. Same with Gilbert. I loved Johnnie, but he needed to be coming off the bench, not starting, or playing the role of 2nd big man.

 

[WaymanFan]

I disagree. Anyone that watched him play knew he was a complete project, regardless of what some recruiting ranking had him when he was 14 to 15 years old. Kelvin and Capel needed to do a better job evaluating his ability on the floor. I pray they didn't look at where he was ranked as a child and call it a day.

But you keep coming with this ranking of Capel's recruiting mistakes, so keep in mind I'm not trying to speak to some arbitrary hierarchy of mistakes and pegging Hardrick into it. I'm not sure dismissing a recruiting mistake because there are worse ones does a whole lot, if anything, for me.


To be clear, that is what I completely disagree with, as it specifically relates to Hardrick. Hoping a guy grows and becomes a better ballplayer is the definition of a project. Heck, even guys that show up in the Top 30 when they are seniors often contains a few guys who still can be considered a reach and who is ranked highly due to potential.

It's only a mistake because you're speaking in terms of hindsight. The OUInsider board had posters jumping for joy when he committed. Many of those same posters had seen him play and was raving that he'd be a McDonald's All-American. I don't remember reading a single post about him being a "project" until last year.

 

[outest]

And Stone never played on anything more than a pretty good OU team. Not blaming him, but if he is starting, he needs to be your worst starter by far. Same with Gilbert. I loved Johnnie, but he needed to be coming off the bench, not starting, or playing the role of 2nd big man.

Common you guys is this a history class? Let's talk about the situation at hand. We need someone in the middle that can give fear to anyone driving in the lane against us even if it took 5 fouls to do so. That's person is Orlando. Capel is concentrating too much with playing pretty. We need to play ugly like Sampson's team.

 

[outest]

If I am Capel, I will play Wright, Fitzgerald, and Orland some minutes. I will tell them when you are in, you better not let anyone driving in the lane against us and rebound. If you don't do that, I will pull you out and put in the next guy. PLAY UGLY and BE AN ENFORCER. Of course not a flagrant foul though, just try to block and be physical.