elmocarp
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I have stayed away from the boards pretty much since the season started because I have been sick to my stomach with how things have gone, but also because I generally find message boards to be really awful places to be when the home team is having trouble. I knew I had to come home eventually, and I guess after a Bedlam win was as good a time as any.
Anyway, I have been lurking on and off and I just wanted to point a few things out.
First of all, we all clearly fell into the same trap that our in-state brethren fell into a few years back when OSU got their recruiting class of the century. I know I would normally never have such high expectations of a team with so little experience and leadership. I'm not sure why I got so over-hyped, I normally keep a pretty even-keel, but for some reason I lost my objectivity completely. I should have seen at least some of this coming, as should many others on the board. As far as I can remember, abd was the only person who was strongly urging people to temper their expectations this year (though its really hard to give him too much credit, since he is a serial contrarian
So everything really should start there. What did we expect vs. what is the product on the floor? There are 2 ways of looking at this: the team as a whole and the individual players. I'm going to start with the players. For all the things that have been said or written, how many guys on the team are actually underperforming based on what you envisioned for them? Crocker and Wright are pretty much exactly what we should have expected, right? I'd actually say that Crocker is probably playing better than most people thought he would...he's averaging 13 on 46% FG, 42% 3PT, 7 boards, 1 block, and 1 steal per game. I don't think expecting better than that would have been too realistic...am I right? Speaking of right, I think Ryan Wright has actually played about as well as we could have reasonably expected. We new he struggled on catches and around the hoop offensively, but he is a plus athlete and a solid defender. Nothing about his play is surprising to me.
Now lets look at Cade Davis, Ray Willis and Orlando Allen. Cade has been all the good and all the bad things that we should have expected from him. He is a really good energy player, plays the right way and is pretty trustworthy with his minutes. But, as we all should have known already, he is limited offensively and isn't the shooter many have made him out to be. Again, so real surprises from Cade. Now to Ray and Big O...I know a lot of us had high hopes for these guys, but what were we basing those hopes on? From what we have seen and heard about these two, they also belong on the growing list of players that pretty much are exactly what we thought they were...short-minute role-players. I know many of us had high hopes for these guys, but like my man Michael Lombardi loves to say, "Never mistake hope for a plan."
Now the freshmen...Tiny, TMG and Pledger have all been pretty much what we should have expected, right? I know we all have grand ideas about the guys we sign, but if these were OSU's or Baylor's freshmen, would we be that surprised about the level they've played at this year? Tiny has actually been a "tiny" bit better than I thought he would be in terms of his willingness to plant himself in the paint, his general level of conditioning, and especially his rebounding. TMG has been about what most of us thought too, right? He has been ok with the ball for a freshman (2.5 to 1 assist-to-TO), shot the three very well, and has been a decent initiator. Most of the reasonable people that talked about TMG coming in expressed concerns about adjusting to D1 ball at his size, and his generally lackluster defense and his inability to find a comfortable way to finish drives are proving that out. Pledger has also been pretty much exactly what we should have expected too. He is either a sub-par or average athlete, but with good size and a terrific shot. He's a willing defender who has some legitimate athletic limitations at this point. Didn't we know that about him? So I'd have to say, we shouldn't really be surprised by these three freshmen either. I think the guy that is confusing and possibly disappointing is Fitzgerald. I personally feel responsible on this one because I fed you guys the testimonials of my buddy from New Hampshire that raved about Fitz. Honestly, I thought he would be more of a factor at this point. I will say, however, that he is easily the hardest guy on the team to get a feel for. Its like he is either comfortable in a particular game or he isn't, and Capel certainly hasn't shown a lot of faith in him up to this point. While I would objectively still give him an "incomplete" grade for things thus far, the bottom line is that most of us anticipated him being more of a contributor at this point.
So, that just leaves us with one guy doesn't it? I guess its time to talk about Willie. First of all, I think anyone who has had any opportunity to take a shot at Willie has done it (whether in the radio, tv, internet, commentators, draft experts or message board losers like us) and for the most part I think people have gone way overboard in the way they've thrown Willie under the bus. It is very, very easy to jump to conclusions about a guy when his body language is as bad as Willie's has been. But the bottom line is that no number of "insiders" or Capel suspensions can really get us inside that team and the dude is one of ours. I think he is hurting as much as anyone with how things have gone this year. Any criticism he receives is likely deserved and comes with the territory he aspires to be in, but I think OU fans in particular can at least take some of the edge out of those criticisms. I mean, its never good if you sound like you hate the best player on your favorite team, right?
That said, Willie is what is disappointing about the team this year, more than any other single factor. If you had told me he was going to look this lost I never would have believed it. Maybe it came from years of watching Samson's team continually turn the team over to the "next guy" or maybe I just put too much stock into his games without Blake last year, I don't know. But I never would have believed he would struggle so much in the role of Alpha Dog. On the contrary, I really believed he would thrive in it, that it was the role he was most suited to. I am completely stunned that his play as the team leader has been so poor. He has really struggled to deal with the attention he is getting from opponents, and as far as I have been able to tell he either shuts it down or forces it. He doesn't seem to know how to play creatively. This has been a shock to me...again, I really believed this would help his game out. Instead, I watch him and feel like he is begging for someone to cut down his options and just slot him into a specific role. I can't begin to communicate how surprising this has been.
And that is just looking at his tangible game...his intangibles are the things that have really been hard to figure. I just don't understand where his head is this year. I know some guys just aren't cut out to lead, but I guess I just missed the warning signs. He really did seem like a guy that was relishing the opportunity to be a team leader. Now when I watch him I feel like he is almost desperate for someone else to take off his shoulders.
Ultimately, we were wrong about Willie. There is no real way around that reality. We were all wrong. It doesn't mean that's the end for him at OU or anything, but we thought he was something that he simply wasn't. And no matter what your specific expectations for this season were, I really feel that the whole argument ends with Willie. If you want to talk about bad defense or inconsistent possessions, I'll just remind you that we only have 2 upperclassmen with any significant playing experience. We should have expected it. If you want to talk about frontcourt issues, since we lost Pattillo we knew that either Ryan or Big O were gonna have to take a major step forward or that Fitz would have to be better than advertised for this not to be a weak area, so again, how can we be surprised?
Fair or not, whether we realized it or not, our expectations for this team (expectations that have not been met) were based on the player we thought Willie would be. I personally thought he would be a dynamic offensive player, a first team all-american and at least an adequate team leader. Right now he simply isn't anywhere near that. And honestly, I am finally ok with that. As a fan, I have to acknowledge my own culpability in this mess. Willie never really demonstrated leadership qualities last season, in fact if anything we probably should have seen the immaturity issues coming. And with the exception of 3-4 games last year, he showed the same difficulty fitting his game into the team. He always either seemed to be super-aggressive or super-passive. We projected a leap for Willie that seemed justified because of how Blake jumped from his freshman to sophomore season.
I love Willie to death and no one is pulling for him more than I am. I hope his worst critics are wrong about him and I sincerely hope he can gradually find a way to put his stamp on this team in a productive way. Going forward, I really do have to forget any kind of season-long goals and just look at each game and hope for the best. I agree with most people that this has been a very tough year as a fan. But things have a way of looking differently after a while, and in a week or a month we might have a whole new feeling about things. Regardless, I think a lot of us need to recognize that we were hoping for a lot more than we had good reason, and we should have been a bit more realistic coming into the year.
Dear God, I can't believe I typed this much...must have needed to get that off my chest. I hope this post made sense and I welcome your input...
Anyway, I have been lurking on and off and I just wanted to point a few things out.
First of all, we all clearly fell into the same trap that our in-state brethren fell into a few years back when OSU got their recruiting class of the century. I know I would normally never have such high expectations of a team with so little experience and leadership. I'm not sure why I got so over-hyped, I normally keep a pretty even-keel, but for some reason I lost my objectivity completely. I should have seen at least some of this coming, as should many others on the board. As far as I can remember, abd was the only person who was strongly urging people to temper their expectations this year (though its really hard to give him too much credit, since he is a serial contrarian
So everything really should start there. What did we expect vs. what is the product on the floor? There are 2 ways of looking at this: the team as a whole and the individual players. I'm going to start with the players. For all the things that have been said or written, how many guys on the team are actually underperforming based on what you envisioned for them? Crocker and Wright are pretty much exactly what we should have expected, right? I'd actually say that Crocker is probably playing better than most people thought he would...he's averaging 13 on 46% FG, 42% 3PT, 7 boards, 1 block, and 1 steal per game. I don't think expecting better than that would have been too realistic...am I right? Speaking of right, I think Ryan Wright has actually played about as well as we could have reasonably expected. We new he struggled on catches and around the hoop offensively, but he is a plus athlete and a solid defender. Nothing about his play is surprising to me.
Now lets look at Cade Davis, Ray Willis and Orlando Allen. Cade has been all the good and all the bad things that we should have expected from him. He is a really good energy player, plays the right way and is pretty trustworthy with his minutes. But, as we all should have known already, he is limited offensively and isn't the shooter many have made him out to be. Again, so real surprises from Cade. Now to Ray and Big O...I know a lot of us had high hopes for these guys, but what were we basing those hopes on? From what we have seen and heard about these two, they also belong on the growing list of players that pretty much are exactly what we thought they were...short-minute role-players. I know many of us had high hopes for these guys, but like my man Michael Lombardi loves to say, "Never mistake hope for a plan."
Now the freshmen...Tiny, TMG and Pledger have all been pretty much what we should have expected, right? I know we all have grand ideas about the guys we sign, but if these were OSU's or Baylor's freshmen, would we be that surprised about the level they've played at this year? Tiny has actually been a "tiny" bit better than I thought he would be in terms of his willingness to plant himself in the paint, his general level of conditioning, and especially his rebounding. TMG has been about what most of us thought too, right? He has been ok with the ball for a freshman (2.5 to 1 assist-to-TO), shot the three very well, and has been a decent initiator. Most of the reasonable people that talked about TMG coming in expressed concerns about adjusting to D1 ball at his size, and his generally lackluster defense and his inability to find a comfortable way to finish drives are proving that out. Pledger has also been pretty much exactly what we should have expected too. He is either a sub-par or average athlete, but with good size and a terrific shot. He's a willing defender who has some legitimate athletic limitations at this point. Didn't we know that about him? So I'd have to say, we shouldn't really be surprised by these three freshmen either. I think the guy that is confusing and possibly disappointing is Fitzgerald. I personally feel responsible on this one because I fed you guys the testimonials of my buddy from New Hampshire that raved about Fitz. Honestly, I thought he would be more of a factor at this point. I will say, however, that he is easily the hardest guy on the team to get a feel for. Its like he is either comfortable in a particular game or he isn't, and Capel certainly hasn't shown a lot of faith in him up to this point. While I would objectively still give him an "incomplete" grade for things thus far, the bottom line is that most of us anticipated him being more of a contributor at this point.
So, that just leaves us with one guy doesn't it? I guess its time to talk about Willie. First of all, I think anyone who has had any opportunity to take a shot at Willie has done it (whether in the radio, tv, internet, commentators, draft experts or message board losers like us) and for the most part I think people have gone way overboard in the way they've thrown Willie under the bus. It is very, very easy to jump to conclusions about a guy when his body language is as bad as Willie's has been. But the bottom line is that no number of "insiders" or Capel suspensions can really get us inside that team and the dude is one of ours. I think he is hurting as much as anyone with how things have gone this year. Any criticism he receives is likely deserved and comes with the territory he aspires to be in, but I think OU fans in particular can at least take some of the edge out of those criticisms. I mean, its never good if you sound like you hate the best player on your favorite team, right?
That said, Willie is what is disappointing about the team this year, more than any other single factor. If you had told me he was going to look this lost I never would have believed it. Maybe it came from years of watching Samson's team continually turn the team over to the "next guy" or maybe I just put too much stock into his games without Blake last year, I don't know. But I never would have believed he would struggle so much in the role of Alpha Dog. On the contrary, I really believed he would thrive in it, that it was the role he was most suited to. I am completely stunned that his play as the team leader has been so poor. He has really struggled to deal with the attention he is getting from opponents, and as far as I have been able to tell he either shuts it down or forces it. He doesn't seem to know how to play creatively. This has been a shock to me...again, I really believed this would help his game out. Instead, I watch him and feel like he is begging for someone to cut down his options and just slot him into a specific role. I can't begin to communicate how surprising this has been.
And that is just looking at his tangible game...his intangibles are the things that have really been hard to figure. I just don't understand where his head is this year. I know some guys just aren't cut out to lead, but I guess I just missed the warning signs. He really did seem like a guy that was relishing the opportunity to be a team leader. Now when I watch him I feel like he is almost desperate for someone else to take off his shoulders.
Ultimately, we were wrong about Willie. There is no real way around that reality. We were all wrong. It doesn't mean that's the end for him at OU or anything, but we thought he was something that he simply wasn't. And no matter what your specific expectations for this season were, I really feel that the whole argument ends with Willie. If you want to talk about bad defense or inconsistent possessions, I'll just remind you that we only have 2 upperclassmen with any significant playing experience. We should have expected it. If you want to talk about frontcourt issues, since we lost Pattillo we knew that either Ryan or Big O were gonna have to take a major step forward or that Fitz would have to be better than advertised for this not to be a weak area, so again, how can we be surprised?
Fair or not, whether we realized it or not, our expectations for this team (expectations that have not been met) were based on the player we thought Willie would be. I personally thought he would be a dynamic offensive player, a first team all-american and at least an adequate team leader. Right now he simply isn't anywhere near that. And honestly, I am finally ok with that. As a fan, I have to acknowledge my own culpability in this mess. Willie never really demonstrated leadership qualities last season, in fact if anything we probably should have seen the immaturity issues coming. And with the exception of 3-4 games last year, he showed the same difficulty fitting his game into the team. He always either seemed to be super-aggressive or super-passive. We projected a leap for Willie that seemed justified because of how Blake jumped from his freshman to sophomore season.
I love Willie to death and no one is pulling for him more than I am. I hope his worst critics are wrong about him and I sincerely hope he can gradually find a way to put his stamp on this team in a productive way. Going forward, I really do have to forget any kind of season-long goals and just look at each game and hope for the best. I agree with most people that this has been a very tough year as a fan. But things have a way of looking differently after a while, and in a week or a month we might have a whole new feeling about things. Regardless, I think a lot of us need to recognize that we were hoping for a lot more than we had good reason, and we should have been a bit more realistic coming into the year.
Dear God, I can't believe I typed this much...must have needed to get that off my chest. I hope this post made sense and I welcome your input...
