Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

[OUHoops]

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Rebounds still are going to fall from the backboards when the Oklahoma Sooners play this winter. It's an inevitable part of the game. No one, not even 1985 Villanova playing nearly flawless basketball, makes every shot. When Jeff Capel ponders the season ahead, this is what he wonders most: Who will pick up the balls that miss?

After producing Oklahoma's greatest basketball success since the 1980s, Capel must replace three starters and the most productive reserve from last season's 30-6 team. Player of the year Blake Griffin averaged 22.7 points and led OU in scoring in 29 of its 37 games and left to become the first pick in the NBA draft.

Aware of all this, however, Capel declared, "My biggest concern, to be honest, is rebounding."

He never worried about this when Griffin was around. As a sophomore, Griffin established himself as one of the great rebounders of modern college basketball history. His 14.4 average was the best Division I performance in a dozen years. He collected roughly one of every five missed shots in Oklahoma's games.

Imagine that: Griffin grabbed one rebound for every four gathered through the combined efforts of all his teammates and all the opponents who faced him.

"We're going to have to really gang rebound," Capel said. "If somebody wants to play -- become a really good rebounder."

Griffin is a big man who moves like a shooting guard, but OU was able only on occasion to use his speed in an end-to-end running game. It was important to keep Griffin in games for as long as possible, and there wasn't much overall depth, anyway.

Capel expects this team will play faster. He has challenged All-America candidate Willie Warren, a shooting guard, to use his extraordinary athleticism to chase down rebounds and then push the ball into the attack. Warren is an irrepressible scorer who likely will rank among the nation's best in that category. He just can't let that be the extent of his contributions.

Point guard Tommie Mason-Griffin, one of last summer's fastest-rising recruits, will have the first chance to replace playmaker Austin Johnson. Reliable wing Tony Crocker and shooting specialist Cade Davis return give the Sooners a promising backcourt rotation.

"The look of our team will change," Capel said. "Every time down floor, we wanted to get the ball inside and play through Blake. The strength of our team now is our guards.

"I don't know if we have a guy they can put down low and throw it to and, if he doesn't get doubled, you know he's going to score."

Oklahoma will not be undersized because of Griffin's departure, not if Tiny Gallon turns out as planned. His nickname is ironic, of course: He is listed on the OU roster at 6-9, 300 pounds. (And, for the record, is listed as "Tiny" and not "Keith," his given name).

Gallon was a top-10 recruit out of Virginia's Oak Hill Academy, where he averaged 16 points for a 40-1 team. He put up 20 points in the McDonald's All-America Game, where there's generally not much defense played but the ball tends to flow toward the fellows who can do good things with it.

"We lost a lot, but I'm really excited about this group," Capel said. "We do have talent. It's young talent, but it's talent. Our freshmen are going to have to grow up quickly."

To that end, Capel decided that process might be accelerated if the new Sooners were to wake up quickly. When hiring his new strength and conditioning coach, Jozsef Szendrei, Capel asked a curious question: "'Would you mind being a jerk?' Because I thought that's what this team needs."

Apparently Szendrei answered appropriately, because for much of the past six weeks he's been meeting the Sooners at 5:45 a.m. for conditioning workouts. A mandatory team breakfast follows. Capel said it's about instilling discipline and accountability.

"I don't know if it's better," Capel said. "It's just a different way to mentally challenge them and to try to help them become mentally stronger. It's been good. For our returning guys, it was something of a shell-shock.

"You can get spoiled a little bit by the success we had last year. Our guys need to understand it's going to be harder. Because of the success we had last year, now we're hunted. Our enforcer is not there. I want these guys to have a chip on their shoulders."

The Sooners cannot expect the sort of excellence they enjoyed last season, but putting Warren on the floor means they'll still begin every game with one of the nation's top five players. He's not going to pull down 14 rebounds a game, but Warren could find other ways to make certain Oklahoma is rebounding, not rebuilding.

Mike DeCourcy is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.

 

[JDM Sooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

After producing Oklahoma's greatest basketball success since the 1980s, Capel must replace three starters and the most productive reserve from last season's 30-6 team.

lol wat

 

[BigTime]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

Great read, but I too, question the greatest since the 80s comment. I guess the writer forgot about our final four, elite eight, and multiple 12 championships under Coach Sampson. How do those teams stack up against the great team of last year? I am not sure. But to leave them out does a real disservice to this program.

 

[tomkar98]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

"I don't know if it's better," Capel said. "It's just a different way to mentally challenge them and to try to help them become mentally stronger. It's been good. For our returning guys, it was something of a shell-shock.

"You can get spoiled a little bit by the success we had last year. Our guys need to understand it's going to be harder. Because of the success we had last year, now we're hunted. Our enforcer is not there. I want these guys to have a chip on their shoulders."

Man, Capel sure has a grasp on the nature of the game! I love what he had to say! I also love that he continues to change and evolve in the way he prepares this teams, every year. He understands what it takes to shape these kids the way they needs to be molded. Its almost scary to witness what he is doing, and how well he is doing it.

 

[piehole]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

:yoyo = jerk!! = :tinypower = :clap

 

[Sooner23]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

Capel = Good Cop

YoYo = Bad Cop

 

[Mr.B!!!]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I love it.

Perplexed about the 80's thing though.

 

[skyvue]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

It is a good story, but the same passage that bothered others stuck in my craw, too.

I just emailed the writer as follows:

Mr. DeCourcy,

I enjoyed your article on the challenges facing Jeff Capel following the departure of Blake Griffin, but one passage struck me as off the mark:

After producing Oklahoma's greatest basketball success since the 1980s, Capel must replace three starters and the most productive reserve from last season's 30-6 team.​

The Sooners certainly experienced great success under Billy Tubbs in the 1980s, but it's not as if they went away in the years between Tubbs' departure and Capel's arrival.

They went to the NCAA tourney every season but one during Kelvin Sampson's 12-year tenure (that season they to the NIT), and in 2002, they went 31-5 and made it to the Final Four. They followed that up in 2003 with a 27-7 season and a trip to the Elite Eight, where they lost to eventual champion Syracuse. What's more, that quarterfinal game was played in upstate New York, an hour or two away from Syracuse, so it was a virtual home game for the Orangemen.

Also, Kelvin Sampson was national coach of the years twice during his time at OU. And the Sooners won several Big 12 titles under his guidance, too.

So it seems to me you've done a disservice to the Sooners' hoops tradition to state that they've not had success like last season in nearly twenty years. It's not just not so.

In fact, when the Sooners missed postseason play in 2007, Jeff Capel's first season, it broke the nation's longest string of postseason appearances (25), only four of which were trips to the NIT.

Oklahoma is not just a football school -- it's one of the better basketball programs around, too -- not up with elites of the game, perhaps, but Jeff Capel's working hard to get the Sooners to that level.

Give credit where it's due, please.

Sincerely,​

 

[BigTime]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

Thanks Sky. I also wrote him, but your email was superb.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

That is how you do one of those types of emails.

 

[skyvue]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

To his credit, he wrote me right back:

Obviously, Kelvin did great work at OU, and the 2002 Final Four was a spectacular success.

I thought last year's team was more dominant, the school's best since the '88 team, and it was mostly bad luck (the late injury to Blake that led to a No. 2 seed in Carolina's region) that kept the Sooners from another Final Four appearance.

I did not mean to shortchange OU's basketball tradition. If OU were only a football school, I would not have been writing about them this week.

Mike DeCourcy
College Basketball Columnist
Sporting News​

I disagree that the '09 squad was more dominant than the 2002 team, but one could make that argument.

 

[MsProudSooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I'll be interested to see if the writer replies to the emails.

 

[MNsooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I think he makes a fair argument. Though he does seem to be dismissing the Sampson years with the way the article reads.

This whole thing does remind me of a funny observation though. I remember when Capel's first team didn't make the postseason, everyone on the other board (well not everyone) said that Capel had lost his only recruiting tool which was telling kids that going to OU guaranteed you a chance to play in the tournament. Glad that turned out not to be the case.
:clap:jcapel
:boomer:sooner

 

[SoonerfanTU]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

Two words:

Bubble Drill

 

[Gutter]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I think the 2002 was slightly better, but, yeah, it's not unreasonable to argue otherwise...I take it from reading this that Tiny isn't much of a rebounder.

 

[MsProudSooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I think the 2002 was slightly better, but, yeah, it's not unreasonable to argue otherwise...I take it from reading this that Tiny isn't much of a rebounder.

Or he's a freshman who needs to become a consistent rebounder. If he was a good rebounder in the past and relied upon his bulk to get him rebounds, he may be having to learn an entire new skill set on rebounding.

 

[boksooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

It is hard to judge whether the '02 or '03 teams were better than last year's team, but they were more successful.

 

[BigTime]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

I think the 2002 was slightly better, but, yeah, it's not unreasonable to argue otherwise...I take it from reading this that Tiny isn't much of a rebounder.

Certainly not unreasonable. I just think that it was pretty poor to not mention Sampson's really good teams. It seems as though that the author now agrees.

 

[DenverSooner]

Re: Rebounds are biggest concern for Capel's Sooners >>> Sporting News

To his credit, he wrote me right back:

Obviously, Kelvin did great work at OU, and the 2002 Final Four was a spectacular success.

I thought last year's team was more dominant, the school's best since the '88 team, and it was mostly bad luck (the late injury to Blake that led to a No. 2 seed in Carolina's region) that kept the Sooners from another Final Four appearance.

I did not mean to shortchange OU's basketball tradition. If OU were only a football school, I would not have been writing about them this week.

Mike DeCourcy
College Basketball Columnist
Sporting News​

I disagree that the '09 squad was more dominant than the 2002 team, but one could make that argument.

That is a pretty fair response. I don't know that I agree because I think the comment in the article suggests not much happened from the 80s to Capel but he does have some logic for his comments.