Blake Griffin: "OU has made a mistake"

[waynepayne]

Looks like the golden calf is hitting some nerves....

 

[NickZepp]

Blake would look just as bad if he basically disowned his former coach and was 100% behind the administration.

 

[WaymanFan]

He wasn't asked why he went to OU, so he didn't have to say anything publicly. I have spoken to several people who know Blake personally and all of them agree that he was not headed to OU until he met Capel. I've never really understood why people feel the need to argue this point. He's even on record of saying it, and people disagree.

Don't bother, Shooter. Some people just can't or won't grasp this. Blake has pretty much said in countless articles that he was only going to OU because of Coach Capel. However, that won't stop others from finding an article which Blake says something positive about Coach Sampson and dream up the idea he would have played for him.

 

[HOTROD21]

I agree with Blake. Castiglione pulled the plug a year prematurely. :jcapel

 

[jerry]

I agree with Blake. Castiglione pulled the plug a year prematurely. :jcapel

Blake was just supporting his friend. Wish he hadn't been so vocal. OU still made the right decision. Time to move on. Win Win situation as Capel can go back to the Southeast or Mid Atlantic area and resume the development of his career.

 

[HOTROD21]

Blake was just supporting his friend. Wish he hadn't been so vocal. OU still made the right decision. Time to move on. Win Win situation as Capel can go back to the Southeast or Mid Atlantic area and resume the development of his career.

Why do you wish he hadn't been so vocal? He has the right to voice his opinion just as much as anybody on this message board. I would have liked to see if the team showed any improvement next season.

 

[CrimsonMarc]

Looks like the golden calf is hitting some nerves....

Yep, pretty much.

 

[Romulus]

He'll get over it

 

[WTSooner]

Seems like a lot of past OU stars have been making dumb (IMO) comments lately. Anybody see the stuff AD said about the lockout?

 

[jerry]

Why do you wish he hadn't been so vocal? He has the right to voice his opinion just as much as anybody on this message board. I would have liked to see if the team showed any improvement next season.

Your opinion, if you wanted a continuing mediocre program then keep Capel.

 

[NickZepp]

I agree with Blake. Castiglione pulled the plug a year prematurely. :jcapel

I respect your opinion. I like Jeff Capel, he seemed like a good guy, but there was just too much against him.

First off the losing. The last time we had back to back losing seasons was the 1960s, and we had 7 straight losing seasons. Bob Stevens was the coach over most of that.

Second recruiting, recruiting recruiting. Think about this, as it stands in his 5 years Capel only had One 4 year player. Cade Davis. The only other 4 year player in the Capel era was Tony Crocker and he was a Sampson recruit. Jeff Capel's attrition rate really hurt him. With Blake and maybe WW there's a good reason those 2 didn't stick around. But still Bobby Maze, Ray Willis, Tony Neismith, TMG, Gallon, the list of the freshmen that didn't stick around really hurt.

Lastly Jeff didn't have a great style of play. People complained about Kelvin's style but you knew OU was going to defend and rebound at least. You also knew where OU's offense was going most years. They were consistent that year on offense once they figured out who were the scorers. Outside of when Blake was here when our offense consisted of getting Blake the damn ball, we didn't have that under Capel. And even then what was Blake's biggest criticism by the NBA scouts? It was his defense. But if you look at OU's defense under Capel it wasn't consistent overall. Especially in the half court. Seems like all of our offense and defense was made to work in the full court, yet we never played much of a full court game. Even with Blake here.

Another year for Capel didn't do much for Capel because we aren't going to be much better. And it could have been a disaster for OU because the attendance was going nowhere but down.

 

[soonernutt]

just b/c he was a superstar hear doesn't give him the right to publicy criticize the university. I think it could hurt short term getting a coach or recruits. just my opinion

He has that right regardless of whether he was a superstar here or not. Free speach and all...

Players tend to defend their coaches, past and present. It's no big deal, and almost to be expected. I doubt anybody at OU has any hard feelings over it, and I doubt any recruits or potential coaches are putting much stock in it.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Don't bother, Shooter. Some people just can't or won't grasp this. Blake has pretty much said in countless articles that he was only going to OU because of Coach Capel.

i think we understand this. But he has also said he was about to commit when sampson was there. Capel isn't the ONLY reason why blake signed

 

[NickZepp]

Blake signed because of his brother mostly. I think Cline helped, but if Kelvin where here I'm sure he signs no matter what the rumors say. Taylor may have been thinking about leaving but I doubt he would have left in the end. He was just a kid that was frustrated at his playing time as a freshman.

 

[stoops4pres]

"As soon as he got the job he started recruiting me and we were in it together," Griffin said. "When I committed to Oklahoma, it wasn't a popular thing to do at the time but I went because of Coach Capel.

Hopefully every poster purporting that there was no way Capel had an influence on Blake's decision to go to OU (which has spanned over the last couple of years) noticed this part of the article.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Hopefully every poster purporting that there was no way Capel had an influence on Blake's decision to go to OU

has anybody ever said this?

 

[stoops4pres]

has anybody ever said this?

Yeah, I've gotten into quite a few debates with posters about this in the past.

And the only debates I got in were the ones that refused to give Capel any credit for landing Blake, when they would say he didn't help at all and would proceed to name other influences besides him. Obviously other guys helped (especially Taylor), but Capel did play a substantial role.

And for the record, I am ambivalent about Capel being gone. I understand he dug himself in this mess, but I also don't know what Joe C. was expecting this season. What was he expecting, exactly? It was a foregone conclusion that the team was going to be bad, and you could make a valid point that Capel exceeded expectations this year (as sad as that is).

I'm presuming that the NCAA ties are much deeper than us on the outside know, because otherwise if Capel is gone because of the team's struggles this season, than Joe C. probably should have just released him right after the 2009-2010 season.

 

[AdaSooner]

Blake signed because of his brother mostly. I think Cline helped, but if Kelvin where here I'm sure he signs no matter what the rumors say. Taylor may have been thinking about leaving but I doubt he would have left in the end. He was just a kid that was frustrated at his playing time as a freshman.

Sorry, Nick, that's not what I was told by someone who was close to the program back then. Taylor wasn't the only player who was thinking about transferring. There were two others.

But, assuming my source was correct, and I believe he was, Blake had no intentions of coming to OU until Capel arrived. Coach Capel deserves the credit for pulling off that recruiting coup.

 

[WaymanFan]

And for the record, I am ambivalent about Capel being gone. I understand he dug himself in this mess, but I also don't know what Joe C. was expecting this season. What was he expecting, exactly? It was a foregone conclusion that the team was going to be bad, and you could make a valid point that Capel exceeded expectations this year (as sad as that is).

I really think it came down to the fact there isn't much help on the horizon. Had OU been in a situation where a couple of big-time recruits were heading our way, then I believe Coach Capel would have gotten a 6th year. Some believe he would have been fired anyway, but that really doesn't make much sense based on your very reasoning. There really couldn't have been a lot expected for this year, but as Joe C was making his decision, he had to be thinking that it won't get a whole lot better next year.

Now, had Coach Capel been retained and landed every one of his top spring targets, OU would look (on paper) like an NCAA bubble team next year...but that's an unlikely scenario, and I'd have to believe Joe C just decided to cut his losses.

Back to Blake Griffin. I just hope he takes a similar approach to Keith Jackson taking after John Blake was let go...voicing a strong opinion, but ultimately still being supportive of the OU program.

 

[stoops4pres]

I really think it came down to the fact there isn't much help on the horizon. Had OU been in a situation where a couple of big-time recruits were heading our way, then I believe Coach Capel would have gotten a 6th year. Some believe he would have been fired anyway, but that really doesn't make much sense based on your very reasoning. There really couldn't have been a lot expected for this year, but as Joe C was making his decision, he had to be thinking that it won't get a whole lot better next year.

Now, had Coach Capel been retained and landed every one of his top spring targets, OU would look (on paper) like an NCAA bubble team next year...but that's an unlikely scenario, and I'd have to believe Joe C just decided to cut his losses.

I see what you are saying, and if Joe C truly did feel that way, then I disagree with his rationale...

We were very young, plus the addition of Osby and Goff was going to help. Add in that and possibly Cezar (had Capel still had a job here) and I think that's a nucleus that made an NCAA Tournament-worthy team a solid possibility.

To me, it has to be NCAA sanctions looming that none of us know about. Otherwise, like I said, I don't know how I feel about Joe C's reason for firing him now when it was a given that the team was going to be bad.