Some observations on the Harvard game

[DenverSooner]

His criticisms are valid. As a whole, we did not play well the last two games of the tournament, and we will get beat if we play like that against good teams.


When you have a team this good, expectations change. You get a little nervous when you don't dominate teams that you're a lot better than.

OU only trailed for a few minutes in two ball games away from home. I would say overall the team played. Pretty well but has some things to work on. I am pretty sure every team at that tournament wanted to win it.

 

[DenverSooner]

They're a national contender if they can establish an inside game and stop taking bad shots. We do have one problem. Our center has to guard forwards because our forward can't guard them.

You think Spangler is a defensive liability? If so I could find about 300 D-1 coaches that would disagree. Rebounding is one of the most important defensive stats. Spangler has been one of the best rebounders in the big 12 in the last decade and without a doubt during his time in the conference.

 

[stormspencer]

We saw stretches in Hawaii of just how good we can be on both offense and defense. Second half against Washington State, Opening run against Hawaii and opening of the second half against Harvard.

It is not uncommon when playing a team you know you should beat to try to force it too much. The Sooners are not a 16 turnover team. But especially after building a lead they tended to play too fast and force too many things. And both Hawaii and Harvard had good defensive teams who got their hands on a lot of passes.

Also after a big run the other team will make adjustments and we have to adjust to their adjustments. We have been a little weak in doing that. And it is complicated by the beginning of bringing players off the bench. Last night none of the players off the bench got into the flow of the game.

And while I get a little weary of the complaints about Kruger's timeout strategy he may be missing the boat at times when the other teams do a good job of adjusting to what we are doing on the court. The players in the game may not pick that up as well as a coach on the bench. Also sometimes they need a reminder not to force it and play out of control.

The most apparent weaknesses at this time are controlling the opponents inside game and poor production by the bench players. Not only are they not contributing much individually but the team is playing much less efficient when they come into the game. Unfortunately the exhibitions and early games against cupcakes always result in unrealistic expectations for the young players. But I expected Odomes and James and even McNease to be much more effective by now.

Does not bode well for early games against Kansas and Iowa State. I'm sure all of the above will be firmly addressed in the next 8 days.

Well said NC....agree 100%. I believe 98% of the OU fans are absolutely thrilled about our performance thus far, but we do need to keep improving because we are far from a finished product.

 

[NorthCarolinaSooner]

I watched the game and my biggest issues were:

Bad shot selection at times....you'll find that with any team if you watch a whole game but we took some really poor shots at times. Taking a pull up 18 footer off the dribble without ever making a single pass in your offense is a poor shot 9 times out of 10.

Penetrating and jumping to make a backwards pass is usually a really bad choice...we do this pretty much every game a few times. We did it vs Hawaii twice that I remember. That is just the basketball coach in me though (I have been a coach for 19 years)....I hate to see that at any level.

We bunch together too much on the break at time....we allow one defender to be able to defend 2-3 guys by not spreading the floor. We have a team that is very good on the break...no need to kill your advantage by simply being too close together....widen out just a little.

We had poor help side D a few times...especially when a kid is murdering you inside like the big was last night...it was pretty obvious Lattin was struggling to guard him in the second half and we didn't rotate over to help like we should...once, Spangler was 2 steps away and he watched the guy get to the hoops for a bucket and a foul.


None of these things aren't easily fixable and I am PRETTY sure Lon and Co don't need ME to point them out. LOL

I love how this team plays....they go hard....when they put their minds to it their defense is solid.....they go on NASTY runs often....what was it yesterday (22-0)? They are fun to watch....every team will have things to work on.....but this group has no MAJOR weaknesses.

 

[NorthCarolinaSooner]

By the way.....let me point out that the new rule of not allowing a coach to call a time out from the bench is excruciatingly stupid. Whoever came up with that rule is simply dumb....and those who passed that through as equally as dumb. And for the idea that is creates "less stoppage" in play is a really stupid reason......people in charge should watch the insane tick tack fouls being caled in the Hawaii game on BOTH ends and make it a point of emphasis to not call 75 fouls in a game if they are worried about "stoppage in play"

They were discussing it last night on TV and it is really stupid.

 

[Seymore Cox]

You think Spangler is a defensive liability? If so I could find about 300 D-1 coaches that would disagree. Rebounding is one of the most important defensive stats. Spangler has been one of the best rebounders in the big 12 in the last decade and without a doubt during his time in the conference.

Just watch him defend. On the ball and help. One play where Lattin got beat, he was suppose to rotate, an easy rotation. He was no where to be found. Worse is he was watching the play.

Now Spangler is a good player and rebounds every ball in his area. However he can't keep up with mobile forwards and centers shoot over the top of him.

 

[usedtobe1]

Just watch him defend. On the ball and help. One play where Lattin got beat, he was suppose to rotate, an easy rotation. He was no where to be found. Worse is he was watching the play.

Now Spangler is a good player and rebounds every ball in his area. However he can't keep up with mobile forwards and centers shoot over the top of him.

How much of that is him trying to stay out of foul trouble? He had 2 early fouls yesterday. He's really our only post player who rebounds very well. I'm guessing they've preached to him not to make any silly fouls. I would rather for him to give up an easy basket than to have him on the bench in foul trouble for an extended time.

 

[TheGimper]

How much of that is him trying to stay out of foul trouble? He had 2 early fouls yesterday. He's really our only post player who rebounds very well. I'm guessing they've preached to him not to make any silly fouls. I would rather for him to give up an easy basket than to have him on the bench in foul trouble for an extended time.

There was also the play in the Hawaii game where he let his guy drain an open short jumper off the inbounds pass because he wasn't paying attention. I love Spangler, but his defense has never been great.

I understand the need to stay out of foul trouble given how important he is to the team, but we have more post depth this season than we have anytime during Spangler's tenure here.

 

[okjim]

His criticisms are valid. As a whole, we did not play well the last two games of the tournament, and we will get beat if we play like that against good teams.


When you have a team this good, expectations change. You get a little nervous when you don't dominate teams that you're a lot better than.

Both of them were good teams. We have to keep our cool and stop those big runs

 

[thegreyghost]

This team is not going unbeaten, they have flaws as does every top team.....the biggest positives were Lattin and Manyang performance in this tourney, both need to be stronger around the bucket and finishing but they both have improved a great deal since the start of the year. If they can get solid contributions from Buford off the bench on a consistent basis going into the tournaments and if 1 of odmes or James can give solid backup minutes they should be a tough out come tourney time

 

[tycat947]

This team is not going unbeaten, they have flaws as does every top team.....the biggest positives were Lattin and Manyang performance in this tourney, both need to be stronger around the bucket and finishing but they both have improved a great deal since the start of the year. If they can get solid contributions from Buford off the bench on a consistent basis going into the tournaments and if 1 of odmes or James can give solid backup minutes they should be a tough out come tourney time

I want this team playing it's best ball in March, not now. We know what we have with Buddy, Isaiah, Ryan and Jordan, and really Dinjyil, as well. The key for our success will be development/improvement from Khadeem and Akolda. Maybe even more important will be improvement and growth of Buford, Odomes, James and McNeace. The bench will be key for ending up where we want to end up.

 

[chuckb]

Just watch him defend. On the ball and help. One play where Lattin got beat, he was suppose to rotate, an easy rotation. He was no where to be found. Worse is he was watching the play.

Now Spangler is a good player and rebounds every ball in his area. However he can't keep up with mobile forwards and centers shoot over the top of him.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

Complaints like this make my brain hurt. "Spangler is a terrible defender. On one play, he didn't rotate over."

 

[Mr.B!!!]

I rarely post anymore, and I agree with the premise of the OP somewhat. But I just wanted to say that it has been a pleasure to watch HCLK build a program that can get critiqued on a double digit tournament championship win 8,000 miles from home.

Even a better is watching young men like Buddy and Cousins become the new face of the program and instilling a culture of hard work and winning. Been amazing to watch a maestro of program resurrection, and love our kids and the way they bought in.

 

[KBaden145]

Some criticism is valid but it's unreasonable to expect us to play a perfect game every time out. The one line in particular that's not valid IMO is the one that says that our turnovers are never created by the other team and are only a result of our ineptness. That's ridiculous. Harvard had issues offensively but they are a very good defensive team. We made some silly mistakes by playing too fast but they also forced some of our mistakes.



It is unreasonable to expect 0 turnovers for a game and unreasonable to suggest that the team is inept if it ever turns the ball over. It's also unreasonable to imply that we're so much better than our competition that they don't have the ability to force into turning the ball over.



I fail to see why, after every victory, there's a parade of threads complaining about why the victory should have been greater. The team did a lot of things well in Hawaii. An even-handed scrutiny of the game or tournament would have included some of them. And it's not even remotely objective to say that our turnovers only come from our own ineptness.

Solid


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[BigTime]

I rarely post anymore, and I agree with the premise of the OP somewhat. But I just wanted to say that it has been a pleasure to watch HCLK build a program that can get critiqued on a double digit tournament championship win 8,000 miles from home.

Even a better is watching young men like Buddy and Cousins become the new face of the program and instilling a culture of hard work and winning. Been amazing to watch a maestro of program resurrection, and love our kids and the way they bought in.

Good to see you back Mr Braceface. Please post more often.

 

[sybarite]

When I was first at OU, Doyle Parrack was the coach, and we were 10-15, 2-12 in conference play. It is fortunate that there were no message boards. But, the team captured so little interest that it wasn't even discussed in the dorms. I usually studied in the library, and it was a three minute walk over to the field house. I paid $2 for an AllSports ticket that entitled me to see every event at OU except for football. There were so few people at the games that you could study. If we went, we cheered. There was no negativity. But, then, there was no interest.

 

[SoonerinNC]

Bruce Drake was the coach when I arrived at OU. He had some good years including a national runner-up in one of the tournaments. There were two at the time with about equal strength (NCAA and NIT). But the game went past him late in his career and we were about 8-17 before he retired and Parrack came in. Parrack had a great run at OCU which was a Div I quality program but he was a tough guy and didn't go over well at OU. He had so many defections that he had to suit up the team manager (a guy named Jack Majors).

So maybe I am a little more tolerant than others of a lack of perfection. Drake said he could compete with any one with 5 quick smaller players. Then Kansas came in with 5 larger players who were just as quick, except for Clyde Lovellet (SP) who was 7 feet and could hit a hook shot from the free throw line.

A part of our defensive woes in Hawaii were from lack of depth. If you watch the Sonners early in the game the help defense is fantastic. They check everyone and still hustle to get back to everyone. But that takes a lot of energy and the guys off the bench are not up to speed on the defense. then if you have foul trouble that will affect the defensive play. We didn't earn that lofty national ranking on defense with mirrors. We have a good defensive team.