I remember people clinging to John Blake

[IndySooner]

I was never a Sampson basher. I think he was a great coach and we will have a tough time getting a coach as good as he was. Capel's record speaks for itself. It's not up to OU's standards. There's a good chance he finishes this year with the worst record in 5 years as OU coach in over 40 years.

:facepalm

Nick, I'd stay out of this one if I were you. Fortunately for you, there aren't threads for us to pull up from your past in regards to Kelvin.

 

[stoops4pres]

:facepalm

Nick, I'd stay out of this one if I were you. Fortunately for you, there aren't threads for us to pull up from your past in regards to Kelvin.

Was thinking the same thing.

No offense Nick, but since you've been a proponent of firing Stoops over the last few years, I find you claiming that you were loyal to Sampson to be a little skeptical.

But I do agree with a point you made earlier in the thread, the Gibbs/Capel comparison is much more applicable than the absurd comparison of John Blake/Capel.

 

[waynepayne]

It does sound like a broken record. Especially when posters give the impression that a sign of improvement by a player or heaven forbid, a win, is a cause for concern instead of a cause for celebration.

if that isnt just the most ridiculous thing

:facepalm

 

[Big Old Booger]

Its an interesting arguement and comparison. I honestly hadn't thought of it but it does carry some merit imo.

I was one of those that was "clinging to Blake". I'll admit it. I thought he was starting to turn it around after his last year and the way we finished that season. Obviously, I was dead wrong and I not afraid to admit it now.

The part that bothers me about Coach Capel is that I am still not sure what we try to accomplish on offense. I see team after team - New player after new player - standing around in the halfcourt and not passing/dribbling/cutting with a purpose. Its like aau ball to me. I also have yet to see us have a team with good helpside defense or a team that excels in transition defense. There are just a lot of questions in my mind as to whether or not the guy can coach at a high enough level to win consistently at a school like OU.

This is not an easy job. We need a great coach to do well here. We've had two in a row, and I hope Capel can grow into the third in a row but at this point I have some serious doubts, and I don't want him to run this program into the ground because Lord knows it will be VERY difficult to get it back turned around due to all the things working against us (piss poor fan support, football school, thunder etc...).

Great post, but we actually had 3 in a row. Dave Bliss won the Big 8 regular season, big 8 tournament and advanced to the Sweet 16 in 1979. He had a good teams in 77 and 78 that would have made the tournament had they invited more than 32 teams back then . He actually started the program going in the right direction, although some will say John McLeod started it with Alvan Adams in the early 70's. The 80 team was pretty good, too, and had 2 losses taken from them on last second shots the old big 8 officials said were after time expired (AT CU and AT NU). That team wouldn't have mad the NCAA with those 2 wins back then, but maybe an NIT or something. He isn't given some due credit because he was young and single and didn't particularly think Norman was exciting enough, so he quit recruiting for the 80/81 season and started looking for a new job. He did leave Ray Whitley who was a very good college player before injuring his knee in the 80/81 pre-season.

Anyway, the concerns you listed with Capel's coaching match mine verbatim. Just wanted to add that one correction, although some on here don't think Bliss was a very good coach. IMO, if you win the conference, tournament, and make the sweet 16, you are doing something right.

 

[Big Old Booger]

:facepalm

Nick, I'd stay out of this one if I were you. Fortunately for you, there aren't threads for us to pull up from your past in regards to Kelvin.

I thought the same thing. I know I used to see Nick complaining about Kelvin, but maybe I got him confused with another NickZepp or something of the like.

I can say without question I was always a big Sampson supporter. I knew when he left we would be hard pressed to find somebody to match what he did. A lot of years he made chicken salad out of chicken shi%. Now, his recruiting could have been blamed for that, but that's another story...

 

[NickZepp]

I think I might have been more critical of Sampson his last year. We just didn't play to our potential that year, but I was probably one of the biggest supporters of Sampson. I'm sure if the old OUI board were up you might find posts from then that showed this. But that board no longer exists. And this one started with the start of Capel.

 

[jmizzy4ou]

I think I might have been more critical of Sampson his last year. We just didn't play to our potential that year, but I was probably one of the biggest supporters of Sampson. I'm sure if the old OUI board were up you might find posts from then that showed this. But that board no longer exists. And this one started with the start of Capel.

I remember Nick being a Sampson supporter as I was also. I hated to see KS leave because I knew that he was an under-rated coach. I believe that JC can be a great coach as well. Last yr was a fiasco which led to our current situation, but I do see evidence of things getting better. I don't believe that we are sinking.

 

[NickZepp]

http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60156

Here's a thread from his final season after we struggled. I thought I remembered being a little more upset than I really was. There's also another thread from around this time where I predicted us better than we ended up being a little later. I was far less critical than I remembered.

I was obviously wrong in some of my assessment in this thread. About Lavender especially. I can't find anything from before Kelvin's last year. If I remember that team last year we nearly beat KU. A week or so later kill Baylor, after that point we just struggled to barely make the tournament and then get killed by Mil-Wisc.

 

[stoops4pres]

I remember Nick being a Sampson supporter as I was also. I hated to see KS leave because I knew that he was an under-rated coach. I believe that JC can be a great coach as well. Last yr was a fiasco which led to our current situation, but I do see evidence of things getting better. I don't believe that we are sinking.

Yeah I don't know how you couldn't be a general supporter of the KS era... Going to the tournament basically every season he was there, success in the Big 12 and NCAA Tournament, etc. A perfect example of how good of a coach he was is when you look back at the Final 4 season in '02... That team was as good as any team in the country, and they were an elite team with no NBA talent whatsoever. They were beating teams with the likes of Caron Butler at UCONN, TJ Ford and Royal Ivey at Texas, ridiculously stacked teams at KU and Maryland, etc, etc. Looking back, that season and the way KS got that team to play above their ability was remarkable.

And I was never one that hated on his style (which I think was one of the primary influences for the KS bashers)... I loved the way his teams always got after it on defense. The only complaint I ever had of KS was that it wasn't uncommon for his teams to go in outrageously long scoring droughts, but what coach doesn't have their flaws?

And I agree on Capel. The main problem with Capel that got himself in this mess was that based on the recruits he's brought in it appears he wasn't diligent enough in checking his players' attitude and character. I think (or at least I hope) Capel has learned this lesson, and if he has then I think he is good enough to get the program out of this mess and get back on the winning track. I guess we will see.

 

[jmizzy4ou]

Yeah I don't know how you couldn't be a general supporter of the KS era... Going to the tournament basically every season he was there, success in the Big 12 and NCAA Tournament, etc. A perfect example of how good of a coach he was is when you look back at the Final 4 season in '02... That team was as good as any team in the country, and they were an elite team with no NBA talent whatsoever. They were beating teams with the likes of Caron Butler at UCONN, TJ Ford and Royal Ivey at Texas, ridiculously stacked teams at KU and Maryland, etc, etc. Looking back, that season and the way KS got that team to play above their ability was remarkable.

And I was never one that hated on his style (which I think was one of the primary influences for the KS bashers)... I loved the way his teams always got after it on defense. The only complaint I ever had of KS was that it wasn't uncommon for his teams to go in outrageously long scoring droughts, but what coach doesn't have their flaws?

And I agree on Capel. The main problem with Capel that got himself in this mess was that based on the recruits he's brought in it appears he wasn't diligent enough in checking his players' attitude and character. I think (or at least I hope) Capel has learned this lesson, and if he has then I think he is good enough to get the program out of this mess and get back on the winning track. I guess we will see.

:clap:clap:clap

As usual, excellent post.

 

[Big Old Booger]

:clap:clap:clap

As usual, excellent post.

I agree.

 

[Section31]

The main problem with Capel that got himself in this mess was that based on the recruits he's brought in it appears he wasn't diligent enough in checking his players' attitude and character. I think (or at least I hope) Capel has learned this lesson, and if he has then I think he is good enough to get the program out of this mess and get back on the winning track. I guess we will see.

...and the fact he lost an ENTIRE recruiting class before he ever stepped on campus. I just can't understand people glossing over that.

Oh yea, and it sure is quiet on the other board after wins, huh? Things that make you go hmmmmm....

 

[NickZepp]

...and the fact he lost an ENTIRE recruiting class before he ever stepped on campus. I just can't understand people glossing over that.

Oh yea, and it sure is quiet on the other board after wins, huh? Things that make you go hmmmmm....

If that was his only problem I agree. But lets just look at his recruits that we basically lost entire classes since then. We've gone through that list over and over and over again. It's really, really long. And we talk about it once or twice or ten times a season when we lose players.

 

[Section31]

If that was his only problem I agree. But lets just look at his recruits that we basically lost entire classes since then. We've gone through that list over and over and over again. It's really, really long. And we talk about it once or twice or ten times a season when we lose players.

So, why skip the first one??? The haters like to gloss over that one. I'm not on here saying he's some sort of "John Wooden", but the same old stuff gets older and older.

 

[jmizzy4ou]

So, why skip the first one??? The haters like to gloss over that one. I'm not on here saying he's some sort of "John Wooden", but the same old stuff gets older and older.

After many back and forth posts, this statement says it all.....:clap:clap

 

[IndySooner]

Yeah I don't know how you couldn't be a general supporter of the KS era... Going to the tournament basically every season he was there, success in the Big 12 and NCAA Tournament, etc. A perfect example of how good of a coach he was is when you look back at the Final 4 season in '02... That team was as good as any team in the country, and they were an elite team with no NBA talent whatsoever. They were beating teams with the likes of Caron Butler at UCONN, TJ Ford and Royal Ivey at Texas, ridiculously stacked teams at KU and Maryland, etc, etc. Looking back, that season and the way KS got that team to play above their ability was remarkable.

And I was never one that hated on his style (which I think was one of the primary influences for the KS bashers)... I loved the way his teams always got after it on defense. The only complaint I ever had of KS was that it wasn't uncommon for his teams to go in outrageously long scoring droughts, but what coach doesn't have their flaws?

And I agree on Capel. The main problem with Capel that got himself in this mess was that based on the recruits he's brought in it appears he wasn't diligent enough in checking his players' attitude and character. I think (or at least I hope) Capel has learned this lesson, and if he has then I think he is good enough to get the program out of this mess and get back on the winning track. I guess we will see.

:clap

 

[NickZepp]

So, why skip the first one??? The haters like to gloss over that one. I'm not on here saying he's some sort of "John Wooden", but the same old stuff gets older and older.

Because the first year isn't his fault. I don't think anyone is blaming him for what happened that year. Still Bobby Maze, Kyle Cannon, Tony Neysmith, Chris Early, Juan Patillo, Orlando Allen, Ray Willis, Keith Gallon, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Abdul Ahmed, and TJ Taylor all left in for one reason or another. That's an average of more than 2 recruits per year being lost. That's tough when you can only sign about 3-5 players most years.

 

[Big Old Booger]

So, why skip the first one??? The haters like to gloss over that one. I'm not on here saying he's some sort of "John Wooden", but the same old stuff gets older and older.

I don't think anybody glosses over it, but don't come on here and say he didn't have talent on that team. He had enough talent to do better than 6-10 in conference and make postseason play.

 

[BigTime]

I don't think anybody glosses over it, but don't come on here and say he didn't have talent on that team. He had enough talent to do better than 6-10 in conference and make postseason play.

What some of you seem to always forget is that our best offensive player (and a top three defensive player) was hurt the entire year with an arm injury. His name was Mike Neal. Remember him? The guy that rained threes all over the place his junior year and was poised to lead the team in scoring? He was a shell of himself as a shooter his senior year. It killed the team.

Show me a healthy Mike Neal and I bet we would have won more than 6 conference games (probably 8 or 9).

The injury wasn't Capel's fault.

 

[NickZepp]

What some of you seem to always forget is that our best offensive player (and a top three defensive player) was hurt the entire year with an arm injury. His name was Mike Neal. Remember him? The guy that rained threes all over the place his junior year and was poised to lead the team in scoring? He was a shell of himself as a shooter his senior year. It killed the team.

Show me a healthy Mike Neal and I bet we would have won more than 6 conference games (probably 8 or 9).

The injury wasn't Capel's fault.

I don't disagree. But I also think not playing Carter half the season hurt a little.