I'm gonna pin this one on Lon

[TINY]

HE....not we. I wouldn't have chosen his son.

So you didn’t think his 1 or 2 seasons at Northern Arizona as an assistant was enough experience to land a competitive position at one of the elite athletic programs in the country?

I remember being lambasted for questioning this nepotistic hire in particular...

 

[SoonerSpock]

Virtually never can a nepotism hire be justified as the best hire available for the position. Be it Mike Stoops, Colton Coale, JT Gasso, Kevin Kruger, Kyle Walton or Lou Ball.

 

[thebigabd]

I truly appreciate coach Lon's positive approach and all ... but this team is soft.

Way too soft.

Soft to the point of being timid.

In fact they remind me of those old WAC teams. They played fun ball but if you really ground into them they folded. They played Pac-10 ball without the athletes.

I dont think you can play that in the Big-12 of the present and be uber-successful. Yes I know we went to the FF a few years back - but they got on a roll and had some favorable matchups. Same could happen here but we won't ever get over the conference hump.

This team is accomplishing what I believe they intended this year... Get an OU player to win national player of the year and get drafted #1 overall, and have a solid season in the process.

In that order.

 

[TINY]

This team is accomplishing what I believe they intended this year... Get an OU player to win national player of the year and get drafted #1 overall, and have a solid season in the process.

In that order.

Huh? Lon is trying to win the national title just like every other year. He puts his players in what he believes is the best chance to accomplish that. Trae is the best player in the country so he is going to be the focal point of the game plan. Lon didn’t recruit Trae knowing he would be a 1 and done. Almost no one expected him to be this good, this soon.

 

[Matthew G]

I'll give you the great defense the second half. But the first half the Sooners were bad defensively, very bad with little effort.

I'd argue that WVU missed several open shots, including some layups in the 2nd half. It was better defense than the 1st, but WVU missed some easy shots, including Carter missing a layup towards the end. OU gave up 3 layups in a row in the final 4 minutes, where WVU scored on 2 of them. Defense is still an issue.

Bigger issue IMO is we don't run the original offense because we can't set a ball screen on Trae's guy. When we do that, they double, and Trae struggles to break the double. Add in that teams now guard Manek on the pick and pop, our offense becomes stale. I'd like to see a lot more movement out of our offense, with James and Odomes getting open off screens

 

[stormspencer]

People keep repeating this as though those are the only 2 things that go into playing defense. Clearly they're part of it but that's not all of it. The way people here repeat those 2 things over and over it's like some of you think anyone who has the right attitude and plays hard can defend at a D-1, Power-5 level. That's completely ridiculous.

Athleticism matters. Strength matters. Concentration/focus matters. Recognition and experience matter. It's not just attitude and effort.

This team was horrible defensively in the first half for many reasons. I'm sure it's the reason McGusty didn't play more than 3-4 minutes. He is awful defensively. In the 2nd half, they were much better -- played with incredible tenacity. Lattin and Manek were fantastic defensively in the 2nd half and Manek is usually awful. They just have to play good defense for 40 minutes. If they're even good defensively in the first half, they win by 6 or 8 points.

Chuck, I agree with you that it's more than attitude and hustle, but I feel like those are the main two ingredients missing a good part of the time when we aren't being successful. Most of our guys have the physical tools to be good defenders or they wouldn't be playing D-1. The question (outside of effort/attitude) is what schemes or fundamentals are they being taught/drilled in practice. Why do we seem to be making the same mistakes over and over again and/or losing our focus?....frustrating. But I know we can be very good on defense at times because I saw stretches of good defense played in the second half last night.

 

[DenverSooner]

I do t get not giving Kruger credit for Spangler. He had one season with Few and four with Kruger.

 

[AdaSooner]

I do t get not giving Kruger credit for Spangler. He had one season with Few and four with Kruger.

If any coach deserves credit for Spangler, it would be Kruger. Four years, counting his redshirt season, trumps one in my book.

But the truth is, Ryan was a self-made basketball player. That’s the way he played in high school. That was also why a number of posters here thought Capel made a huge mistake by slow-playing him until OU lost him to the Zags.

Spangs was one heck of a football player, too. He started as quarterback for three years and finished his career with 6,951 passing yards, 71 touchdowns, and 20 interceptions while completing 466-of-778 passes (.599). He also averaged 37.8 yards per punt as a senior. I think football had a lot to do with his rugged style of play on the court. What an athlete!

 

[Dcox]

We miss Henson and Hill a lot more than we thought we would.

+1

 

[opsooner]

LK is who he is. He wants offensive players to run and play loose. Even though everyone other than TY has weaknesses we have still done OK on offense against about everyone

We just don’t play defense well enough to overcome the few problems we have on offense.

WV is not a good offensive team as we saw in the second half. They had some hot shooters in the first half who were allowed to get in their comfort zones. We also had numerous breakdowns that gave them dunks and layups, Unfortunately, our offense got out of sorts because WV has a good big and a good D plan that forced everyone other than TY into their weaknesses.

Season is still good but too many good players out there to play D the way we play D.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CMSOONER]

This years team and staff needs Lou Henson. He was the yin to Lon's Yang. He was the guy lighting the fire under the players. I don't know that this staff has that guy.

 

[Maverick008]

This years team and staff needs Lou Henson. He was the yin to Lon's Yang. He was the guy lighting the fire under the players. I don't know that this staff has that guy.

You mean Steve Henson?

 

[Stikboy]

This years team and staff needs Lou Henson. He was the yin to Lon's Yang. He was the guy lighting the fire under the players. I don't know that this staff has that guy.

Really? I thought Kevin Kruger was a bare his fangs and yell so hard he spits guy. Who knew?

 

[Swans]

You mean Steve Henson?

Lou Henson works also. A little old at 86, but his track record is good.