Calm down

[seniorsooner]

First of all let me say that if you are upset at this loss because you thought we were going to storm into the top 25 rankings by the start of conference play, the problem lies first and foremost with your expectations. We are coming off of three straight abysmal seasons, and there are still several players from those teams in our rotation. To that we have added several true freshmen. Tonight we played a very good Gonzaga team. A team that several national pundits have said has final 4 potential. What did you expect? Personally, I fully expected us to get rolled in ugly fashion in this game.

My expectations were in check coming into this season. My expectation was, and remains, a NIT birth. That's certainly still on the table. Have I written off us having any chance at being a NCAA bubble team? No, but I think it is highly unlikely. I think a lot of people were expecting - or should I say hoping - that we would go straight from the outhouse to the penthouse, so to speak. Unfortunately, it's not going to work that way. This is not going to be a quick fix.

Those that are attacking Kruger...what exactly do you want him to do? I guess you want him to go out and sign a class of 8 top 50 guys and *Presto!* we'll be a top 10 team overnight. That type of mentality is likely coming from the same people who floated John Calipari's name as a potential candidate to replace Sampson before Capel was hired. Some of you just really need to come to grips with what the perception of this program is right now. Hint: it's not good. It is going to take years to change that.

I see Kruger as more of a stop gap measure than a long term solution. He is here to solidify the program, do things the right way (absolutely ZERO chance of violating our NCAA "probation"), and to start to repair the image of Oklahoma basketball. If you're expecting final 4 runs under Lon Kruger, I think you're probably going to be disappointed. However, we will certainly see improvement. And the day that Lon Kruger retires, which I don't believe will be THAT far off into the future, the program will be in much better shape than it was when he got here. At that point perhaps we will be able to lure in a coach that can truly get us back to competing at a very high level on the national stage.

 

[Soonerman]

:clap

Been trying to explain some of those things, just much poorer at it because I can't believe some of the things people post and it gets me riled up.

 

[opsooner]

First of all let me say that if you are upset at this loss because you thought we were going to storm into the top 25 rankings by the start of conference play, the problem lies first and foremost with your expectations. We are coming off of three straight abysmal seasons, and there are still several players from those teams in our rotation. To that we have added several true freshmen. Tonight we played a very good Gonzaga team. A team that several national pundits have said has final 4 potential. What did you expect? Personally, I fully expected us to get rolled in ugly fashion in this game.

My expectations were in check coming into this season. My expectation was, and remains, a NIT birth. That's certainly still on the table. Have I written off us having any chance at being a NCAA bubble team? No, but I think it is highly unlikely. I think a lot of people were expecting - or should I say hoping - that we would go straight from the outhouse to the penthouse, so to speak. Unfortunately, it's not going to work that way. This is not going to be a quick fix.

Those that are attacking Kruger...what exactly do you want him to do? I guess you want him to go out and sign a class of 8 top 50 guys and *Presto!* we'll be a top 10 team overnight. That type of mentality is likely coming from the same people who floated John Calipari's name as a potential candidate to replace Sampson before Capel was hired. Some of you just really need to come to grips with what the perception of this program is right now. Hint: it's not good. It is going to take years to change that.

I see Kruger as more of a stop gap measure than a long term solution. He is here to solidify the program, do things the right way (absolutely ZERO chance of violating our NCAA "probation"), and to start to repair the image of Oklahoma basketball. If you're expecting final 4 runs under Lon Kruger, I think you're probably going to be disappointed. However, we will certainly see improvement. And the day that Lon Kruger retires, which I don't believe will be THAT far off into the horizon, the program will be in much better shape than it was when he got here. At that point perhaps we will be able to lure in a coach that can truly get us back to competing at a very high level on the national stage.

I was kind of with you until your last paragraph. He is being paid an awful lot of money to be a stop-gap. It would also not be hard for anyone to leave the program in better shape than he found it. A good hungry coach with a well-written contract and internal monitor can also prevent violation of NCAA rules.

I agree with you that he just needs to get us started in the right direction and not win the conference championship. I believe he has enough talent and returning players on the team to show us some improvement this year. Looking forward to watching it happen. I would also be pleased with an NIT bid but will likely be disappointed without it.

 

[steverocks35]

I would be less upset about the loss tonight if we even looked like we knew what we were doing on offense and that the offensive sets we were running looked competent. We just looked sloppy, careless, and disorganized. Even with substandard talent we should at least look crisp and we should execute well, Gonzaga certainly did.

 

[MercedeSooner]

What you posted was a realistic expectation of our team right now but come on for OU BBall at best an NIT berth isn't going to make people happy. Most of us have been OU fans for a long while, funny how we took just making the tourney every year for granted now.

Kruger also isn't some no name coach and he has a history of success and turning around teams and bringing em dancing. You ask the majority of OU fans when Kruger was first hired and I'd bet the large majority would have expected improvement to the level of making the tourney by year 2. He's here to clean up the program and win - as shown by how much Joe C shelled out for him.

I'm still confidant we'll improve a lot by years end, turning over the lineup like he has there was going to be a learning curve - just very frustrating that it feels like we're taking 2 steps back instead of moving forward. I'll trust his knowledge on what it takes to win but we really need some lights of hope.

 

[Keller Sooner]

I certainly didn't expect us to beat Gonzaga last night. I did expect us to compete better than we did. I was mostly disappointed with our offense, it looked a lot like what we've seen the last three years. I think we have better parts to work with this year and surely they will improve by conference play, but they are not anywhere near an NIT team at this point. I saw an awful lot of standing around on the offensive end and that is unacceptable for OU basketball. Hopefully they play West Virginia with better results. I'm ready to give Coach Kruger the time to fix this program but so far I don't like what I'm seeing.

 

[Darwin]

First of all let me say that if you are upset at this loss because you thought we were going to storm into the top 25 rankings by the start of conference play, the problem lies first and foremost with your expectations. We are coming off of three straight abysmal seasons, and there are still several players from those teams in our rotation. To that we have added several true freshmen. Tonight we played a very good Gonzaga team. A team that several national pundits have said has final 4 potential. What did you expect? Personally, I fully expected us to get rolled in ugly fashion in this game.

My expectations were in check coming into this season. My expectation was, and remains, a NIT birth. That's certainly still on the table. Have I written off us having any chance at being a NCAA bubble team? No, but I think it is highly unlikely. I think a lot of people were expecting - or should I say hoping - that we would go straight from the outhouse to the penthouse, so to speak. Unfortunately, it's not going to work that way. This is not going to be a quick fix.



I see Kruger as more of a stop gap measure than a long term solution. He is here to solidify the program, do things the right way (absolutely ZERO chance of violating our NCAA "probation"), and to start to repair the image of Oklahoma basketball. If you're expecting final 4 runs under Lon Kruger, I think you're probably going to be disappointed. However, we will certainly see improvement. And the day that Lon Kruger retires, which I don't believe will be THAT far off into the future, the program will be in much better shape than it was when he got here. At that point perhaps we will be able to lure in a coach that can truly get us back to competing at a very high level on the national stage.

I very much agree with everything in your post except the bolded. I believe Lon will have the program where Kelvin had the program and I also expect some fans to complain about Lon as they did about Sampson during those Hollis Price years. I also see no reason Lon can't continue to coach here into his 70s.