Hard to believe we are talking about "can we make the tourney" in Capel's fifth year. Thought we'd be more established at this point. Maybe Jeff is growing as a coach as OU as growing as a program. Color me skeptical until this team proves it. Chemistry, in my opinion, comes from winning. Winning comes from great players and good coaching. I am not sure this team has enough of either one of those things.
Ok, I'm out of the loop.
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luckyc1423
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That would mean something if we were midway through the year....this team has no real elite player that stands out so everyone on the team thinks they have a chance to play....lets wait till guys get benched and realize they wont be playing before we say they have chemistry.
ksSooner13
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I honestly do not think this will be an issue for this team, we do not have any of the egos that we had on last year's roster. We have a TEAM that just wants to win basketball games any way that is possible, even if that means certain players get less playing time than others.
EufaulaSooner
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We are currently in the late pre-season, the portion of the year when OU fans overestimate how good we are going to be.
There will always be a positive story or two in the Oklahoma papers introducing one or two of the new guys, and talking about how good they supposedly are. The writers know readers love these stories, and they don't want to show bad form by deflating the expectations bubble, so they always look on the bright side. Thus, you get stories like "Cameron Clark breathes life into OU basketball". Who could read that and not immediately think Clark is awesome? Never mind that he has never even played in a basketball game for the Sooners.
The coach, too, (no matter who it is at the time) looks on the bright side because he doesn't want to harm the team's confidence before the season even starts. So he talks about what the team can be, always with the caveat "if we work hard/play together/etc".
The fans want to believe. They are already inclined to, otherwise they wouldn't be fans in the first place. So they fully buy the talk about the newcomers' ability, focusing on their strengths and filling in the questionable areas with optimistic assumptions. (This team has great chemistry! they say of a team they have never seen play against anybody, and certainly not a good opponent. Thompson is going to be awesome! they say of a guy who averaged 8 points and 4 rebounds in junior college.) They hear the coach talk about the possibilities, but ignore his caveats.
Then the games start being played. We blow out some unknown directional schools in the exhibition and early non-con games, and suddenly we are locks for the NCAA tourney. Eventually we play a good team, and people finally moderate their expectations, but now they are disappointed.
We have no idea what kind of team we have. Logic says we won't be very good, considering the massive, unprecedented number of newcomers, almost all of whom are not highly ranked. The Big 12 coaches picked us 11th out of 12.
How about we wait until the games are played before assuming we are a tourney team?
There will always be a positive story or two in the Oklahoma papers introducing one or two of the new guys, and talking about how good they supposedly are. The writers know readers love these stories, and they don't want to show bad form by deflating the expectations bubble, so they always look on the bright side. Thus, you get stories like "Cameron Clark breathes life into OU basketball". Who could read that and not immediately think Clark is awesome? Never mind that he has never even played in a basketball game for the Sooners.
The coach, too, (no matter who it is at the time) looks on the bright side because he doesn't want to harm the team's confidence before the season even starts. So he talks about what the team can be, always with the caveat "if we work hard/play together/etc".
The fans want to believe. They are already inclined to, otherwise they wouldn't be fans in the first place. So they fully buy the talk about the newcomers' ability, focusing on their strengths and filling in the questionable areas with optimistic assumptions. (This team has great chemistry! they say of a team they have never seen play against anybody, and certainly not a good opponent. Thompson is going to be awesome! they say of a guy who averaged 8 points and 4 rebounds in junior college.) They hear the coach talk about the possibilities, but ignore his caveats.
Then the games start being played. We blow out some unknown directional schools in the exhibition and early non-con games, and suddenly we are locks for the NCAA tourney. Eventually we play a good team, and people finally moderate their expectations, but now they are disappointed.
We have no idea what kind of team we have. Logic says we won't be very good, considering the massive, unprecedented number of newcomers, almost all of whom are not highly ranked. The Big 12 coaches picked us 11th out of 12.
How about we wait until the games are played before assuming we are a tourney team?
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