Reaves/Marshall-WSU/Observations

[SoonerinNC]

We have 8 solid guys. Williams, Hill and Iwuakor are much better than our bench guys from last year. Maybe even better than some of the starters.

Really looking for something to complain about, writing off two frosh redshirts.

Appear that Kruger does not use his bench much in the second half. Probably cost him in the Wichita State game as we hit a stale spell and maybe some energy from the bench could have changed things.

I prefer using reserves one or two at a time rather than all three or four. But Kruger is the coach with a ton of wins and I am not.

 

[WaymanFan]

I agree with a lot of what thebigabd says. While the JUCO talent isn’t what it was during Billy and Kelvin’s heyday, there is definitely some talent that could help us. Billy was one of the two best JUCO recruiters of all time (along with Tark). Kelvin was smart enough to build off the JUCO tradition, but it looks like the momentum completely halted after he left for Indiana. It’s too bad because we could be much more competitive if the JUCO recruiting was better.

 

[sperry]

Nine games into his career and Williams has already played a big role in contributing to two or three wins. If that is simply serviceable, I guess someone needs to be averaging 20+ to actually be considered good.

I still don't understand what people think should be realistically expected from bench players at the college level, whether they come from high school, JUCO, prep school, the NBA Academy, or fall from the sky and land in Norman. People fixate so much on where our recruits come from -- some people love JUCOs, others hate them. Some people pine for "high school guards," others don't. The fact remains that most teams, even great ones, have at most three guys on the bench who are going to be steady contributors throughout the course of a season. Even those guys will have ups and downs. When Vic, Williams, Hill, or Kur have a good game (and all of them already have), people are begging Lon to play them more. When they have a poor game, people label them as dead weight. The regular season is not even a third of the way over. A couple of the guys on our bench are true freshman, and both of the JUCOs (especially Williams) have already helped us. If you are looking for them to be stars, then of course you will be disappointed. But again, that is true for basically every bench player in America.

Williams is serviceable. That’s not a diss. He’s a legitimate rotation player for a big xii team. And that’s a slam dunk from a juco in 2019. For the one alondes Williams we’ve had, you’ve got a bunch of kids we’ve signed who had no business being on an ou roster. When your ceiling is a decent backup, and your most likely outcome is a wasted scholarship, what exactly are you trying to accomplish. Use those ships on high school projects that you at least have some time to develop.