Next year's Starting Lineup

[Big Old Booger]

No, You are just plain wrong. You are missing the big picture. Way to caught up in stats. Osby for example. He looks much better in games than he does in practice. Sure, he will make a play now and then that defines him as the talent he is.

But, in practice, it is a struggle for him to get an open look or a rebound, or to assert his will like he did much of the conference season. I guess that some one could come up with a lot of angles for why that is the case. But, the over riding factor is that Spangle can go toe to toe with him in most of the areas Osby is good. And Bennett is only a couple of ticks behind.

The freshman guards on the other hand, have looked much better in practice than they have in games than they did through the conference season. The primary reason of course is that the other conference teams put better players on the floor than the players they caught in practice.

We will be young next season. I can not predict how much they will improve or how consistent they will be. But, I can predict that their ceiling will be much higher.

That is good stuff right there. This team will be much improved on defense and rebounding. How many teams did Kelvin roll out that didn't look like much (offense) on paper, but won games by playing good defense and getting rebounds?

 

[Soonerman]

I agree with pretty much everyone else that our team is going to look much different next year, compared with this year's team. Agree with others that we may not be as good offensively as were this year (in stretches), but I think we are going to be tenacious as hell on defense, and that excites me! Hield and Cam on the wings are excellent defenders. Bennett and M'Baye are very athletic in the post, and Spangler could be a brute down low. If Cousins can cut his TO's down and improve on his shooting, he's already got the good defense part down. Don't know what to make of Hornbeak defensively, maybe someone smarter than me can tell me, but he seems solid.

 

[KBaden145]

Next years team will be different and I think a better product overall. This years team didn't set some mold that is now broken. This staff won't coach them the same. I think some are a little too hung up on what we are losing. I agree with Ada that the toughest thing to replace will be Osby off the court. I am not worried at all about the production on the court.

 

[vbdad]

I promise that Cousins and Woodard are more talented than Sam. Sam did a great job this year but these guys have superior talent. Woodard I believe will be the starting point guard by conference play if not sooner. All three of the freshman will improve a bunch this offseason.
Cam is very effective at the 4 coming off the bench and expect it to continue. Spangler is a horse and will compete although he won't be as good as Ro next year. M'Baye will get better. Bennett will be better than Andrew because of his defense.
Pledger was a very good shooter but whoever he covered was usually scoring a bunch on us. He was terrible on defense as was Fitz which is why he couldn't get minutes against SDSU. Nobody on the floor he could cover. Sam also was a defensive liability.

 

[WTSooner]

Pledger was a very good shooter but whoever he covered was usually scoring a bunch on us.

Statements like this are why I have to defend Pledger so much. That is simply not a true statement. For several reasons.

 

[AdaSooner]

Excellent points by all about the improvements we should see on defense next season. It's a credit to LK and the hard work most of our players put in that this year's team developed into a pretty decent unit defensively.

I've said a number of times over the years that a defense is only as good as its weakest link. When at least one of your starters continues to have breakdowns in coverage, and two of the subs off of the bench struggle to stay in front of their man, the other players have to work extra hard to make up for their mistakes. If they failed to do that, the result was usually a layup, a dunk or an easy shot from the perimeter.

I've got a feeling we won't see much of that in the future. Kruger is a defense-first coach who will recruit players who can and want to play defense. Those who don't, won't play.

 

[stoops4pres]

Not sure I agree that next year's team has a higher ceiling than this year's. Experience counts for something.

But I do agree that when our freshman are Jr's and Sr's, that team should have a higher ceiling for sure.

I don't think some realize just how inexperienced we'll be next year.

Exactly. Not to be contentious within the same fanbase, but I have a feeling this thread has some "bump" potential at this time next year when some people will see that next year's crop isn't quite the upgrade over this year's that they are making it out to be.

But again, I'd rather be the one in the wrong and eating crow. It was refreshing seeing OU back where they belong (in the tourney), and obviously we all want that to continue.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

Everybody's losing somebody, just hope we don't replace a somebody with a nobody.