Kelvin, come home.

[WTSooner]

Sampson never won a conference title. He did win the weekend tourney 3 times, but never won a regular season title. Most of his seasons were 20 wins and first round loss in NCAA and never had a chance for much more. He had a few really good seasons, but most of his teams were handicapped and about 2-3 players short.

They were not 2-3 players short. Most were about 1 player short.

Kelvin won 11 NCAA Tourney games in 12 years at OU.
Billy won 15 NCAA Tourney games in 14 years at OU.

I'm pretty sure Kelvin would have landed 4 more wins in those next two years had he stuck around. But that begs the age old question.....would you rather make the NCAA Tourney and lose in round 1, or miss it altogether? To me that is an easy question to answer. Missing the tournament is a FAR worse fate than losing early. FAR worse. And it's what soured me on Capel, and is starting to sour me on LK.

Coach - Seasons Coached at OU - Seasons OU Missed Tourney
LK - 6 - 2 (and had 2 first round NCAA losses) - excludes 2018 season
Capel - 5 - 3 (and had 0 first round NCAA losses)
Sampson - 12 - 1 (and had 6 first round NCAA losses)
Tubbs - 14 - 5 (and had 2 first round NCAA losses)

Make of that what you will, but I like making the Tourney, even if it means an early exit.

 

[152219]

But Kelvin played some good teams OOC too.

Arkansas (#3 at the time) in 1995.
Arkansas again in 1999.
4th ranked Cincy team in 2000.
Arkansas again in 2001.
Michigan State and Maryland (NC's) in 2002.
In 2003 they played (ranked) - Bama (8), Mississippi St. (16), Michigan St. (14), and UCONN (3)
In 2004 they played (ranked) - Michigan St. (5), Purdue (16), UCONN (1)
In 2005 they played #7 Duke and #12 UCONN
They played #4 Nova in 2006

Those were just the teams ranked at the time we played them. I didn't have time to research the games against teams that would later be ranked. Both Tubbs and Sampson played good competition. Tubbs' gets remembered a bit more, I think, b/c of the style of play.

Just looking at teams from major conferences (or major programs like UNLV, Memphis, Louisville, etc) in OOC games for a couple of seats that listed above.


1987
UNLV 2x
A&M
Texas
FSU
LSU
NC St
Kentucky

1988
A&M
Penn St
FSU
UVA
UGA
LSU
Pitt

1989
Oh. St
UNLV 2x
Michigan
Texas
A&M
Pitt
'89 also has LMU when their program was just taking off

Tubbs didn't load up on cupcakes in OOC games. He did the opposite of what you said.

 

[152219]

Thankfully the OU media guide has the information on the team rankings before the game and the results (I'm not sure if the AP poll had a Top 25 or if the cut off was top 20 back in the early '80s). But here are the results.

Tubbs
'80-81
#18 Illinois- L

'81-82
#13 Tulsa- L

'82-83

'83-84
#14 Arky- L
#7 UNLV- W

'84-85
#2 Illinois- L
#7 Illinois- L
#7 SMU- L
#20 Louisville- W
#19 LaTech- W (Karl Malone team)
#10 GT- W

'85-85
#7 Illinois- W
#2 Duke- L
#18 NCSU- W

'86-87
#5 UNLV- L
#1 UNLV- W

'87-88
#6 Pitt- W

'88-89
#16 tOSU- W
#8 UNLV- W
#3 Mich-L
#13 UNLV- W
#1 Zona- W

'89-90
#5 UNLV-W
#23 Zona- L

'90-91
#2 Arky- L
#23 Texas-W
#9 Duke- L

'91-92

'92-93
#23 Mass- W
#1 Duke- L

'93-94
#18 UMass-L

Overall 15-14
8 wins over teams in the Top 10 and twice they beat the #1 team in the land.

Sampson

'94-95
#3 Arky- L
#17 GT- L

'95-96

'96-97

'97-98

'98-99
#19 Arky- W
#3 Cincy- L

'99-00
#4 Cincy- L

'00-01
#25 Arky- W
#20 Maryland- L

'01-02
#15 MSU- L
#2 Maryland- W

'02-03
#8 Bama- L
#16 Miss St- L
#14 MSU- W
#3 UConn-W

'03-04
#15 MSU- W
#16 Purdue- W
#1 UConn - L

'04-05
#22 Washington- L
#7 Duke - L
#12 UConn- W

'-05-06
#4 Nova- L

Overall record of 8-12
2 wins against Top 10 teams and 0 wins against the #1 team in the land.

 

[WTSooner]

So Tubbs played about 1 more ranked team a year (OOC), on average (a little less acutally), than Sampson?

Kind of backs up my statement that Tubbs filled the extra OOC games he was getting with a smaller conference slate with similar unranked teams. So maybe I shouldn't have used the term "patsies", but I did follow that up by saying I thought they probably played pretty similar schedules. Tubbs did play a lot of nobodies though. I remember those games. I'll use the '82 season as an example. That year OU played Texas State, SW Missouri State, Sam Houston State, Texas Pan-American, Oklahoma City, Western Illinois, Texas Pan-American again, Oklahoma City again, South Alabama, and Wisconsin-Parkside. The only other OOC games that year were Purdue and Tulsa. So it happened. There were years he played better OOC schedules, but he played some real stinkers too.

Even later, in 1990, they played US International, NE Illinois, Angelo State, James Madison, North Texas, Tulsa, Alaska-Anchorage, and Arkansas-Little Rock.

 

[WTSooner]

Sampson never won a conference title. He did win the weekend tourney 3 times, but never won a regular season title.

Not true. OU and KU tied for the regular season title in 2005, both with 12-4 records. So that is a shared title, I'm pretty sure. And guess who won the only meeting between OU and KU that season? I've give you a hint, it wasn't KU.

 

[WTSooner]

Thankfully the OU media guide has the information on the team rankings before the game and the results (I'm not sure if the AP poll had a Top 25 or if the cut off was top 20 back in the early '80s). But here are the results.

Just so you know, so does Soonerstats.com, and ESPN (as far back as it goes).

Would love to have this information for the end of the season though. That is when it really matters. If you beat a team ranked 10th in the first 2 weeks of the season, and that team finishes unranked, you essentially beat an unranked team as far as I'm concerned.

 

[152219]

So Tubbs played about 1 more ranked team a year (OOC), on average (a little less acutally), than Sampson?

Kind of backs up my statement that Tubbs filled the extra OOC games he was getting with a smaller conference slate with similar unranked teams. So maybe I shouldn't have used the term "patsies", but I did follow that up by saying I thought they probably played pretty similar schedules. Tubbs did play a lot of nobodies though. I remember those games. I'll use the '82 season as an example. That year OU played Texas State, SW Missouri State, Sam Houston State, Texas Pan-American, Oklahoma City, Western Illinois, Texas Pan-American again, Oklahoma City again, South Alabama, and Wisconsin-Parkside. The only other OOC games that year were Purdue and Tulsa. So it happened. There were years he played better OOC schedules, but he played some real stinkers too.

Even later, in 1990, they played US International, NE Illinois, Angelo State, James Madison, North Texas, Tulsa, Alaska-Anchorage, and Arkansas-Little Rock.

Every team is going to play stinkers. I'm not going to go through the poopoo platter of teams that Sampson played. The bottom line is that Tubbs on average played a tougher OOC schedule and was more successful.

 

[152219]

Just so you know, so does Soonerstats.com, and ESPN (as far back as it goes).

Would love to have this information for the end of the season though. That is when it really matters. If you beat a team ranked 10th in the first 2 weeks of the season, and that team finishes unranked, you essentially beat an unranked team as far as I'm concerned.

Soonerstats.com isn't as complete as the media guide, I checked.

 

[sooner 1234]

Unfortunately your argument falls flat because recruiting is a huge part of any college coaching job. And Sampson’s NCAA record and propensity of losing in the first round of the tourney hurts your 1 game argument. Even at Houston his teams have lost twice in the first round of the NIT.

Capel for basically his whole ou career and Kruger this year show you what recruiting does without development /schemes/in game coaching .

 

[152219]

Capel for basically his whole ou career and Kruger this year show you what recruiting does without development /schemes/in game coaching .

Did I say that recruiting was the only thing that mattered? It is obviously a combination of both.

 

[hoopsaustin]

Capel for basically his whole ou career and Kruger this year show you what recruiting does without development /schemes/in game coaching .

Yup

 

[152219]

Just so you know, so does Soonerstats.com, and ESPN (as far back as it goes).

Would love to have this information for the end of the season though. That is when it really matters. If you beat a team ranked 10th in the first 2 weeks of the season, and that team finishes unranked, you essentially beat an unranked team as far as I'm concerned.

You can look up the end of the season numbers. But, that argument is weak because you cannot change the fact if a game was a big game at the time or not. And if you win, then the team you beat drops in the rankings but if you lose they rise, so somehow if you lose the game was more important. Same fallacy in football. If you win all of your games then your opponents were of lower quality than if you had lost.

 

[WTSooner]

You can look up the end of the season numbers. But, that argument is weak because you cannot change the fact if a game was a big game at the time or not. And if you win, then the team you beat drops in the rankings but if you lose they rise, so somehow if you lose the game was more important. Same fallacy in football. If you win all of your games then your opponents were of lower quality than if you had lost.

I disagree. Preseason, and thus, early season rankings, are due in large part to the name of your school, maybe the preceding year, and a lot of guessing.

Where are teams are ranked late in the season, by and large reflects how good that team really was, b/c you have a full season's worth of games to "rank" them based on.

Football is different given the smaller number of games played, thus magnifying any single win/loss. But the same thing happens there. First example that game to mind was ISU in 2002. They were 6-1 and #9 in the country going into our game. We pounded them 49-3. They ended the season 7-7 and unranked (obviously). OU didn't beat anything resembling the 9th best team in the country that day. They beat a team that had a back loaded schedule, a lot of early season home games, who had beaten an overranked Nebraska team that itself finished 7-7 that season. ISU looked "legit" to some at that point, b/c they thought FSU and Neb were legit. But neither was, thus ISU wasn't, and the season as a whole proved that out.

 

[Eielson]

No he wouldn’t, but keep banging that drum of ignorance.

I suggest you look at the facts before continuing this conversation. Kelvin went to the NCAA tournament 11 out of 12 years, and the one year he didn't, he still won 20 games and went 8-8 in conference.

All I really assumed he'd do is what he already did. Nothing far-fetched about my post.

 

[Sooner81]

NEVER ever will Sampson coach at OU. He’s a cheater Multiple times that are known of. Thinks the rules don’t apply to him. And personally I had 2 different chance encounters with him and just tried to say hi in passing and he blew me off and acted like he was something - I have No use for people like that. How you are when no one is looking IS how you are and who you are. He is not a good person and as stated above is a cheater. I’d rather lose than have someone like him at OU. Just my opinion.

 

[MrAnderson]

NEVER ever will Sampson coach at OU. He’s a cheater Multiple times that are known of. Thinks the rules don’t apply to him. And personally I had 2 different chance encounters with him and just tried to say hi in passing and he blew me off and acted like he was something - I have No use for people like that. How you are when no one is looking IS how you are and who you are. He is not a good person and as stated above is a cheater. I’d rather lose than have someone like him at OU. Just my opinion.

I'd rather make the tournament every year and have a team that leaves it all on the floor every night. I couldn't care less about his phonecall scandal, nor his off putting personality. I like winning. Consistently.

 

[DenverSooner]

If you have been on these boards from their inception, going back to OU Homer, then you know e I am a Sampson fan and defender. With that said I liked Billy better.

Billy Ball was more fun. And saying no matter how bad the officiating gets, please don’t throw things on the Court makes Billy Tubbs my hero. Best college sports moment of my life and I was at the 2000 national Championship in great seats.

 

[outest]

Yes I would love to have Sampson as our coach. His team improved as the season went on not like what we are now.

 

[DenverSooner]

The notion that Sampson is some horrible cheater is absurd. His offense was too many telephone calls. When he called a kid and they said can’t tslk now, he did not count that as a contact. OU self reported and set him up. They did not tell him to stop counting that way. Then the NCAA counted calls for years and acted like it was a massive scandal. To me that is nothing.

 

[coolm]

I didnt think much of the phone calls. that was a crock. But Kelvin's conduct after with the NCAA was poor and not what I'd expect from my coach. And his hiding of the ray lopes stuff was bad too.