Crean vs. Kruger

[WTSooner]

Sorry...can't see McDonald's All-Americans playing for a mid-major coach. Those two committed to play for Kelvin Sampson, not OU (regardless of the fine print in the LOI). If Joe C landed a big name who was well-established, that would have been a different story.

Coach Capel not having a backup plan when he failed to land the top prize was a frustration we all shared; not just the OU fans who couldn't wait for him to be fired.

You don't hire a coach to keep kids around. You hire the coach you think has the best chance of winning with your program. And I'm one of the few Capel bashers that probably doesn't hold Reynolds/James leaving against him. Those two wanted to play for Sampson, and they were gone the day Sampson left OU. Not sure there is anybody we could have hired to keep them. Even Kelvin tried to get them to still go to OU, and they weren't having it.

 

[garyeb2]

Uh, Capel took his wife with him to Reynolds house to try to hold him togther. That was an NCAA violation. A minor one. Capel received a reprimand for the incident.

 

[Big Old Booger]

If you are saying that Jeff Capel had an opportunity to meet with these guys in person and chose not to, then I'll admit to being completely wrong and put the blame directly on him...but are you sure it really went down that way? I have my doubts...it seems he went to bat with "Strike-3".

I read on this board from a good source (maybe chewy?) he never went to visit Damion James. Instead, he attempted to call him and spoke to Damions brother instead acting like he was Damion.

 

[BoulderSooner]

cam clark was a top 40 national recruit ...

 

[Big Old Booger]

cam clark was a top 40 national recruit ...

Nice kid, but he was overrated based on his performance thus far.

 

[OUHoosier]

Good grief, is it possible on this board to post anything that doesn't go back to a debate about Capel? Seriously, some of you need to seek therapy on how to let things go. I started this thread to show the positive side about rebuilding and how it can be difficult even at a traditional powerhouse, but all this is about now if who blames Capel and by how much.

Sawyer- nothing personal, but you couldn't be more wrong about how awful the IU job was once Crean got to Bloomington. I was in law school during the Sampson debacle and Crean's first year. When Crean first got here, the Hoosiers immediately lost DJ White, Eric White and Lance Stemler to graduation and Eric Gordon to the NBA. Dan Dakich (a complete horse's butt) took over at the end of the season and kicked off two other starters- Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis off the team for drug issues; half that team had drug issues and there many, many rumors of a couple players sexually assaulting several women- I'm not going to name names, but the program was in shambles, both on the court and off the court. Three more players transferred out and they all went on to play well at other programs: see Jordan Crawford at Xavier and Armon Bassett led Ohio to the NCAA tourney, for examples.

In Crean's first year he had 2 players returning- Kyle Tabor and Brett Finklemeier (sp?). One walk-on and one scholarship player. They were both NAIA type players at best. The program was in absolute shambles in every way imaginable. Go look at Eric Gordon's comments about his year at Indiana and what really went down during that time. Not to mention the NCAA penalties that Crean faced thanks to Sampson.

Further, my point was that Kruger is considered a better coach that Crean, and I certainly won't debate that, but working magic is harder than it appears and rebuilding takes a while. Fortunately OU is in much better shape than IU was after the first year. Just give the man some time and I think he'll have this turned around and incredibly strong when he chooses to retire to hand off to another coach.

 

[OUHoosier]

I know this subject kind of died, but this article sums up how bad IU was when Crean took over. This should give more hope about OU the next few seasons.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basket...carpenter_indiana_tom_crean_turnaround_031212

 

[jmizzy4ou]

Good grief, is it possible on this board to post anything that doesn't go back to a debate about Capel? Seriously, some of you need to seek therapy on how to let things go. I started this thread to show the positive side about rebuilding and how it can be difficult even at a traditional powerhouse, but all this is about now if who blames Capel and by how much.

Sawyer- nothing personal, but you couldn't be more wrong about how awful the IU job was once Crean got to Bloomington. I was in law school during the Sampson debacle and Crean's first year. When Crean first got here, the Hoosiers immediately lost DJ White, Eric White and Lance Stemler to graduation and Eric Gordon to the NBA. Dan Dakich (a complete horse's butt) took over at the end of the season and kicked off two other starters- Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis off the team for drug issues; half that team had drug issues and there many, many rumors of a couple players sexually assaulting several women- I'm not going to name names, but the program was in shambles, both on the court and off the court. Three more players transferred out and they all went on to play well at other programs: see Jordan Crawford at Xavier and Armon Bassett led Ohio to the NCAA tourney, for examples.

In Crean's first year he had 2 players returning- Kyle Tabor and Brett Finklemeier (sp?). One walk-on and one scholarship player. They were both NAIA type players at best. The program was in absolute shambles in every way imaginable. Go look at Eric Gordon's comments about his year at Indiana and what really went down during that time. Not to mention the NCAA penalties that Crean faced thanks to Sampson.

Further, my point was that Kruger is considered a better coach that Crean, and I certainly won't debate that, but working magic is harder than it appears and rebuilding takes a while. Fortunately OU is in much better shape than IU was after the first year. Just give the man some time and I think he'll have this turned around and incredibly strong when he chooses to retire to hand off to another coach.

Good info Hoosier.

 

[OUHoops]

Good grief, is it possible on this board to post anything that doesn't go back to a debate about Capel? Seriously, some of you need to seek therapy on how to let things go. I started this thread to show the positive side about rebuilding and how it can be difficult even at a traditional powerhouse, but all this is about now if who blames Capel and by how much.

I thought the same thing about Sampson when Capel was here. Now we're getting a double-dose of Sampson as he's involved in the IU/Crean discussion too. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

 

[OUHoosier]

I thought the same thing about Sampson when Capel was here. Now we're getting a double-dose of Sampson as he's involved in the IU/Crean discussion too. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

I decided to go to IU for law school about a week before it was announced that Kelvin was going to IU. We were having a business lunch and Dean the Stream's brother, I believe, texted one of my colleagues who really enjoyed breaking that news to me.

IU's WBB coach just got fired, so given all the OU-IU ties, I'd expect IU to make a run at Sherri now.

 

[Soonerman]

Capel was a very good RECRUITER. He brought in highly rated RECRUITS. The thing with RECRUITS is, is that they don't always turn out to be as highly rated or as good a D1 PLAYER as everyone initially projected.

Blake Griffin, Willie Warren, TMG, Tiny Gallon, and Cameron Clark were all highly rated (some more than others, obviously) by college coaches and recruiting services across the country. Some of you (no surprise), are comparing apples to oranges with how these kids were viewed as recruits and what they did on the floor for OU.

One of the major drawbacks of putting too much faith into untested high school kids.

 

[Soonerman]

What I'm trying to say is that it's much more fair to criticize Capel on what he did with those recruits once they got to Norman than to criticize him on his ability to recruit and land highly rated high school basketball players.