OU Hoops Mount Rushmore

[Boomer-D]

As far as players Tisdale and Adams are the no brainers to me. Then you have a group of King, Blaylock, Griffin and Price. I would have to put one of the guys from the 89 team and my choice would be Blaylock(offensive leader and great defender). Then I'd have a post Tubbs era guy and that's really tough because Blake was so great he left after 2 years. Hollis gave us 4 years of great play and team results...just talked myself into Price for the forth spot.:OUbball-logo:

 

[BigTime]

Wonderful Wayman
AA
Mookie
Hollis

 

[Darwin]

Wayman, Blake and Stacey are the easy ones and a host of others who could join them but what criteria separates the great from the exceptional?

 

[KBaden145]

Wayman, Blake and Stacey are the easy ones and a host of others who could join them but what criteria separates the great from the exceptional?

To answer your question...time. I think it is clear this is coming down to 6 players (Adams, Tisdale, King, Blaylock, Price, and Griffin) and 2 coaches (Drake and Tubbs). There is room on my mountain for 8 guys.

 

[skyvue]

I think it is clear this is coming down to 6 players (Adams, Tisdale, King, Blaylock, Price, and Griffin) and 2 coaches (Drake and Tubbs). There is room on my mountain for 8 guys.

I don't know how you leave Sampson off, if you put Drake and Tubbs up there.

 

[jmizzy4ou]

Instead of turning it into a debate, why don't we just make a huge Sooner Rushmore and put everyone mentioned on????

I do not believe any guidelines were made by the OP, so everyone is correct, IMO......

With that said, mine would be large enough to include WWT, AA, Stacy, Mookie, BT, KS, and Drake, along with Blake and Hollis........

 

[KBaden145]

I don't know how you leave Sampson off, if you put Drake and Tubbs up there.

You are the first to mention him. I was just making a complete list to this point. Personally, I would not include Sampson.

 

[sybarite]

Adams and Tisdale stand a bit above.

Griffin, Blaylock, Lester Lane, Gar Heard, Don Sidle, Stacey King deserve consideration.

 

[skyvue]

Personally, I would not include Sampson.

Why?

 

[DenverSooner]

Drake is as important (or darn close) in the history of Oklahoma Basketball (the entire state) as Henry Iba.

 

[DenverSooner]

Adams and Tisdale stand a bit above.

Griffin, Blaylock, Lester Lane, Gar Heard, Don Sidle, Stacey King deserve consideration.

I don't understand how they stand above Griffin.

 

[sybarite]

I think Griffin helped himself more than OU---two years. Adams built a program that had been down, and Tisdale elevated a program to high standards for three years. They did more for OU.

 

[KBaden145]

Why?

As far as coaches go at OU, he is 3rd in importance. Drake is a hall of famer and Tubbs built this program up to the 2nd best program in the decade of the 80's. Sampson was very good here but I just don't think he did enough to belong in that group. Just my opinion.

 

[WTSooner]

As far as coaches go at OU, he is 3rd in importance. Drake is a hall of famer and Tubbs built this program up to the 2nd best program in the decade of the 80's. Sampson was very good here but I just don't think he did enough to belong in that group. Just my opinion.

Guess it depends how you measure success. Me personally, I'd take Kelvin's consistency over Billy's top accomplishments. NOT that I'm comparing Billy to Capel, but we saw with Capel how a coach can luck into a few good seasons. MUCH more difficult to do what Kelvin did, which was to keep us as one of the top non-Elite programs in the country for over a decade.

Kelvin had a higher winning %, higher winning % in conference games, and did so against tougher competition, and in a tougher conference.

JMO.

 

[BoulderSooner]

Adams Tisdale King and mookie

those are my 4

 

[Escape Goat]

I would have to go with:

AA
Wayman
Mookie
Griffin

Notables: Hollis, King, Minor, Lester, Gar, etc., etc. I feel Eduardo is in this discussion as well. Ultimately we just need a larger mountain.

 

[SoonerNorm]

A. Adams
W. Tisdale
S. King
B. Griffin

 

[Big Old Booger]

Guess it depends how you measure success. Me personally, I'd take Kelvin's consistency over Billy's top accomplishments. NOT that I'm comparing Billy to Capel, but we saw with Capel how a coach can luck into a few good seasons. MUCH more difficult to do what Kelvin did, which was to keep us as one of the top non-Elite programs in the country for over a decade.

Kelvin had a higher winning %, higher winning % in conference games, and did so against tougher competition, and in a tougher conference.

JMO.

I love Kelvin Sampson, but Tubbs was pretty consistent too. From 83 - 90, he had 4 conference titles, 3 tournament titles, final 4, 2 elite 8's, and 3 sweet 16's. We were in the top 3 of the conference every year in that time period. The conference was pretty stout back then too...KU and Mizzou were very good as was ISU, and K-State was no pushover back then.

Also, Tubbs inherited a much worse situation than did Kelvin.

I don't think you understand what the program was when Billy arrived or you wouldn't make the statement above.

Not trying to offend.

 

[KBaden145]

Guess it depends how you measure success. Me personally, I'd take Kelvin's consistency over Billy's top accomplishments. NOT that I'm comparing Billy to Capel, but we saw with Capel how a coach can luck into a few good seasons. MUCH more difficult to do what Kelvin did, which was to keep us as one of the top non-Elite programs in the country for over a decade.

Kelvin had a higher winning %, higher winning % in conference games, and did so against tougher competition, and in a tougher conference.

JMO.

I'm definitely not disparaging Sampson or his accomplishments. I'm a big fan. Excellent coach, will be a NBA head coach sooner rather than later, and probably a better in-game coach than Tubbs. However, for me, I go with Tubbs superior record in the tournament, the title game appearance and that wonderful team, and 7 total conference titles (4 regular season and 3 tournament). Tubbs went 9-18 in his 1st season and won the conference 3 years later. 1 year later, we were whisker away from the Final Four. Tubbs coached at least 5 of the 10 best teams in OU basketball history (1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, and 1990). Sampson may have won at a better clip in the regular season but we never have returned to the heights we reached under Tubbs. Plus he is still here and a native Oklahoman. I identify him with OU basketball more.

 

[Big Old Booger]

I'm definitely not disparaging Sampson or his accomplishments. I'm a big fan. Excellent coach, will be a NBA head coach sooner rather than later, and probably a better in-game coach than Tubbs. However, for me, I go with Tubbs superior record in the tournament, the title game appearance and that wonderful team, and 7 total conference titles (4 regular season and 3 tournament). Tubbs went 9-18 in his 1st season and won the conference 3 years later. 1 year later, we were whisker away from the Final Four. Tubbs coached at least 5 of the 10 best teams in OU basketball history (1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, and 1990). Sampson may have won at a better clip in the regular season but we never have returned to the heights we reached under Tubbs. Plus he is still here and a native Oklahoman. I identify him with OU basketball more.

:clap

Very good post.

I will add, had the football program not had so much turmoil which led to Dr. Tom Hill's hiring, which led to the stars from the 89/90 team all leaving the University (Jackie Jones, McCovery, etc.) because they were going to be ineligible (Damon Patterson was also ineligible but stayed), Tubbs has another final 4 in 90/91 and I think the program would have rolled along another 4-5 seasons at least.

A lot of younger OU fans don't realize how crippled the program was when Hill was hired. Maybe it was done for the right reasons because players should be graduating. However, the other Big 8 programs weren't doing that to their athletic teams and neither were programs like UNLV, Michigan, and Kentucky, who were all big-time programs at the time.