Capel built this team - thanks coach.

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bocabull

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Say what you want about coach Capel, he left the program in great shape. Even Grooms has said Capel recruited him and he was planning to come even before coach was fired.

The problem of the last 2 seasons is squarely on the decision to build the program around Tiny/TMG and that was Capels mistake.

But let's not act like Capel is some joke like Hillbilly Ford. He coached us into the 2nd round his second year and elite 8 his 3rd. Then after the Tiny/TMG debacle he put together this roster in 1 and a half years. That's impressive!!

We should all have the same attitude towards coach Capel that coach Kruger has and thank him for leaving us in such great shape.
 
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I agree. I don't think one can simply say that all the success this season (with only 4 games played) can be attributed to Lon Kruger entirely. Even if Capel was the worst coach ever (which he wasn't), he still recruited almost all of the players on the bench, and the players themselves have to be given a lot of credit for their growth as athletes and persevering through a difficult coaching change.
 
I have no hard feelings toward Coach Capel. I think he'll learn from this and be a really good coach somewhere. This wasn't the right time or place, though.
 
Huh? Nobody ever claimed Capel left the roster completely void of talent. That is why myself, and some others, were so frustrated. We never played up to our talent level.

But to suggest Capel deserves any kind of praise for what he left is silly. First, if you cannot coach up that talent, it doesn't matter. Second, he left an average amount of talent for LK this year. What do I mean by that? Simple.....the years where we had less talent then what Capel left LK are few and far between. He left what OU normally has on their roster year to year. In fact, most people complained about the talent that was on campus when Capel got here. I'd argue the amount of talent Capel inherited was nearly equal to what he left. So either he left a crap roster, or he inherited a roster that had much more talent then most folks on here have ever admitted to. I'll post the recruiting rankings to support that if I need to.
 
WTSooner said:
Huh? Nobody ever claimed Capel left the roster completely void of talent. That is why myself, and some others, were so frustrated. We never played up to our talent level.
Click to expand...

Your memory must be bad. Last season EVERYBODY claimed this roster was void of BIG 12 talent.
 
I think we probably had a little more talent when Capel got here especially with the youth. We probably had a little bit better young part of the team than we have right now. 2 years from now we'll basically have Clark, Neal and Newell from our current roster. Rest of the roster will basically be a new one. In 07 we had more freshmen and sophomores that were talented of course a couple those ended up leaving for various reasons.
 
Capel did a lot of great things for this program, It didn't finish all that well because of a few mistakes in picking recruits.

The big advantage Lon Kruger has is we have a great assembly of role players. We have rebounders down low, a great game manager, and some excellent shooters. Now all we need to do is build this up w/ better and better talent and eventually you will see a National Title Caliber team.

We are only missing a few key pieces right now.

PG (Grooms) check
SG (Pledger) check
PF (Osby) check
6th man (Newell) check
Potential (Clark) check
 
I use to be a huge capel fan, but really, Capel is a jerk. glad he is gone.
 
soonersublime said:
Capel did a lot of great things for this program, It didn't finish all that well because of a few mistakes in picking recruits.

The big advantage Lon Kruger has is we have a great assembly of role players. We have rebounders down low, a great game manager, and some excellent shooters. Now all we need to do is build this up w/ better and better talent and eventually you will see a National Title Caliber team.

We are only missing a few key pieces right now.

PG (Grooms) check
SG (Pledger) check
PF (Osby) check
6th man (Newell) check
Potential (Clark) check
Click to expand...

No he didn't. Capel was a horrible coach. Blake Griffin did great things for the program. Had he and his teammates had an adult for a coach,they might have won it all
 
Let's be honest. Lon Kruger is a really good basketball coach, and his players completely buy into his system. I don't think there is a human being, maybe not even Capel himself, who could explain to you what Capel's system even was.
 
WTSooner said:
Huh? Nobody ever claimed Capel left the roster completely void of talent. That is why myself, and some others, were so frustrated. We never played up to our talent level.

But to suggest Capel deserves any kind of praise for what he left is silly. First, if you cannot coach up that talent, it doesn't matter. Second, he left an average amount of talent for LK this year. What do I mean by that? Simple.....the years where we had less talent then what Capel left LK are few and far between. He left what OU normally has on their roster year to year. In fact, most people complained about the talent that was on campus when Capel got here. I'd argue the amount of talent Capel inherited was nearly equal to what he left. So either he left a crap roster, or he inherited a roster that had much more talent then most folks on here have ever admitted to. I'll post the recruiting rankings to support that if I need to.
Click to expand...

Please don't do that. Everytime you trot out those recruit rankings to argue against all the available evidence, it makes it look like you don't have a clue.

Now, i don't think that is true. But, there is no need to go out of your way to embarass yourself.

Last year OU had a really bad team. No talent and they were poorly coached. This year they are a team that can beat bad teams. A big step forward. Much better coaching and they picked up Grooms and Osby. It isn't that hard to figure out.

If they win Sunday, then they just might be a team that can beat the teams that can beat the bad teams. A really big step.

And before you start firing blanks at me again. If Coach Kruger things thinks that Pledger is a better option than Calvin right now. Then, he is right and I am wrong. If you think the same thing, then you are right and I am wrong. It is no more complicated than that.

But, that issue does not change the perponderence of evidence that suggest that Pledger, Fitz, and Blair are not good enough to help elevate OU back to the top 20/25 caliber level they maintained for nearly a generation before Capel flushed it.

Grooms was good enough to dispatch Blair. Calvin hasn't been good enough to get by Pledger. Mayby one of those two incoming freshmen will. And mayby you will be right and M'baye will end up playing out of position to get Fitz out of the lineup. If Cam doesn't start cashing some of that potential in, he will have to go into that not enough talent group.

With the exception of Osby on the shelf and a good shot at Grooms, Capel left the cupboard bare. I'm happy Pledger has played as well as he has. And I'm happy the team has progressed so far. But, I'm not going to waste any time pulling on wishbones.
 
Nice flame thread, boca. Glad to see not many are taking the bait.

I like Coach Capel. He made some very poor recruiting decisions (mainly by not having a backup plan and not scouting his own backyard hard enough). I bet he has learned from some of his mistakes and will end up being a fine hc someday.

That said, The players themselves and Coach Kruger's staff deserve ALL the credit for what has happened thus far. Not Capel.

DM,

Care to elaborate?

SK,

Watching Capel's offenses in the halfcourt often left me puzzled.
 
Capels system was very similar to Duke's. In fact if you've watched Duke this year they run some of the same plays we ran the past few years. The difference is that their guys are more talented and experienced than ours were the last 2 years. The system worked just fine when we had upper-classmen like Taylor Griffin, Tony Crocker and Austin Johnson to go with supreme talents like Willie Warren and Blake Griffin. Thats why Capel won 30 games, a feat that Kruger has only done once in his career and Kelvin only did once.

But the past two years we had freshmen all over the floor. This year we don't. It makes a difference.

Capel did a good job of recruiting in hurry when he got here and then building a team that we are just now getting to see blossom. Kruger is doing a good job of putting them in spots to be successful and helping guys like Newell and Neal to get some confidence, but going from a freshman to a sophmore helps with that too.

I'm glad to see Kruger having some success. He's a good coach and a good guy. I'm also glad that people on this board are smart enough to understand that basically every player on the floor besides Grooms was left here by Coach Capel, and that there's no reason to constantly hammer on a guy that left us with a crew of upper-classmen that will likely have 2 more successful years at OU for us to enjoy.
 
Krugerfan52 said:
Capels system was very similar to Duke's. In fact if you've watched Duke this year they run some of the same plays we ran the past few years. The difference is that their guys are more talented and experienced than ours were the last 2 years. The system worked just fine when we had upper-classmen like Taylor Griffin, Tony Crocker and Austin Johnson to go with supreme talents like Willie Warren and Blake Griffin. Thats why Capel won 30 games, a feat that Kruger has only done once in his career and Kelvin only did once.

But the past two years we had freshmen all over the floor. This year we don't. It makes a difference.

Capel did a good job of recruiting in hurry when he got here and then building a team that we are just now getting to see blossom. Kruger is doing a good job of putting them in spots to be successful and helping guys like Newell and Neal to get some confidence, but going from a freshman to a sophmore helps with that too.

I'm glad to see Kruger having some success. He's a good coach and a good guy. I'm also glad that people on this board are smart enough to understand that basically every player on the floor besides Grooms was left here by Coach Capel, and that there's no reason to constantly hammer on a guy that left us with a crew of upper-classmen that will likely have 2 more successful years at OU for us to enjoy.
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:clap:clap:clap
 
badger, not NP again:

Thank you Felton Jeff Capel the Third... for leaving in time for the NCAA to not render a stronger verdict against our program than it did. The NCAA could have labeled us a repeat offender and hit us with very stiffling penalties that would have even prevented Awesome Lonster from competing... but thank goodness, we were able to argue that not only were the assistant and the player gone, but so was the head coach from when the rules infractions took place.

Thank you Felton J. the Third. Thank you so much :)
 
Oh hell, I'll take the bait. What fun is a thread like this if nobody wants to fight?

Thanks for getting us Blake, Taylor. Thanks for leaving early, Tiny. Thanks for staying another year, Willie. Thanks for going to a school out of the conference, Scottie. Thanks for getting guys to practice on time, Cade.

But most of all, thanks for never talking to the media so that most people in the nation never got a chance to know how bad we were, Jeff.
 
DenverSooner said:
No he didn't. Capel was a horrible coach. Blake Griffin did great things for the program. Had he and his teammates had an adult for a coach,they might have won it all
Click to expand...

Not going to hate the past bro, just made a point Capel had a very good season, whether we would have won it all with another coach is a moot point because we have no ability to find out if that would be true.

I felt the university made 2 correct decisions this year, getting rid of Capel and bringing in Kruger. I am not going to blast Capel just thank him for a couple of exciting years, and wish him good luck in the future.

We have an exciting team now, and it appears we will have a few great seasons here in the near future, no reason to trash Capel any more.
 
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