Still proud of this team!

[FaithfulSooner]

This team is learning how to get a lead in a game after being down, but has not learned how to finish a team off once getting that lead. This is the next step. Stop making the key mistakes down the stretch that get you beat. Proud of or point guard TMG. He out played roberson tonight like it was nobody's business. You have to admit that seeing how this team would respond without WW was interesting. However, I think we win the game with WW in there. I thought Tony stepped up, but made a key turnover at the end. Cade gave wonderful effort, but just couldn't hit any shots tonight. Tiny needs to suck it up and get his head back on straight. All he is right now is a guy who has shown what he can do in a few games with excellent potential. I think at times he has shown us that he has passion for this game, but he must bring it every game. Just keep working hard Ryan Wright. Ray Willis did a couple of nice things, but he needs more playing time and work. With that said. We have our work cut out for us. We have to keep playing hard. We can still be a very good team with effort, passion and working hard. BOOMER SOONER BABY!!!:clap

 

[FaithfulSooner]

We're not done yet! BOOMER SOONER BABY!!!

 

[Darwin]

This team seemed headed due south before osu. A big part of the fan base(including me)was barely hanging on before they showed the necessary effort. The team is headed in the right direction even with the last 2 losses and needs our support.

 

[Seymore Cox]

This team seemed headed due south before osu. A big part of the fan base(including me)was barely hanging on before they showed the necessary effort. The team is headed in the right direction even with the last 2 losses and needs our support.

If you would have told me at the beginning of the month that we'd have a chance to win two road games, I would have laughed. They should have won those two games. Alot better play than what we saw against VCU, Northern Colorado, and Gonzaga.

One thing we need to quit doing as fans is getting into camps about who's the "man" on the team, and who's not OU caliber or not. We've got one group that's in the TMG camp, another group in the WW camp, and another in the Tiny camp. Same groups are saying Cade isn't big12 caliber or Ray isn't big12 caliber. Now I don't know if those guys read this message board or not, but each of those guys probably has an innercircle telling them the same things. We need to hope they don't buy into that philosophy and continue to progress.

 

[drmouse]

This team is learning how to get a lead in a game after being down, but has not learned how to finish a team off once getting that lead. This is the next step. Stop making the key mistakes down the stretch that get you beat. Proud of or point guard TMG. He out played roberson tonight like it was nobody's business. You have to admit that seeing how this team would respond without WW was interesting. However, I think we win the game with WW in there. I thought Tony stepped up, but made a key turnover at the end. Cade gave wonderful effort, but just couldn't hit any shots tonight. Tiny needs to suck it up and get his head back on straight. All he is right now is a guy who has shown what he can do in a few games with excellent potential. I think at times he has shown us that he has passion for this game, but he must bring it every game. Just keep working hard Ryan Wright. Ray Willis did a couple of nice things, but he needs more playing time and work. With that said. We have our work cut out for us. We have to keep playing hard. We can still be a very good team with effort, passion and working hard. BOOMER SOONER BABY!!!:clap

I'm not sure you learn how to grab a lead or how to finish a team off, you either have it in you or you don't. it is not like you play for a few months and all of a sudden you know those things and you didn't before.

 

[BigTime]

I'm not sure you learn how to grab a lead or how to finish a team off, you either have it in you or you don't. it is not like you play for a few months and all of a sudden you know those things and you didn't before.

Nonsense. Of course you can learn to hold a lead or finish a team off. You can manage the clock down the stretch, limit your shot selection, not force it on offense, work on hitting FTs when you are tired in practice. And those are just some things right off the top of my head.

 

[BigTime]

If you would have told me at the beginning of the month that we'd have a chance to win two road games, I would have laughed. They should have won those two games. Alot better play than what we saw against VCU, Northern Colorado, and Gonzaga.

One thing we need to quit doing as fans is getting into camps about who's the "man" on the team, and who's not OU caliber or not. We've got one group that's in the TMG camp, another group in the WW camp, and another in the Tiny camp. Same groups are saying Cade isn't big12 caliber or Ray isn't big12 caliber. Now I don't know if those guys read this message board or not, but each of those guys probably has an innercircle telling them the same things. We need to hope they don't buy into that philosophy and continue to progress.

Who are in these so called camps that you speak of? I just don't see it. Most folks (including myself) just call it like they see it. When Willie wasn't giving effort on defense, I called him out. Over the past three games that he has played in, I have seen a much better effort and I have stated that on this board.

 

[Sooner Quick]

Who are in these so called camps that you speak of? I just don't see it. Most folks (including myself) just call it like they see it. When Willie wasn't giving effort on defense, I called him out. Over the past three games that he has played in, I have seen a much better effort and I have stated that on this board.

This!
And really I've only seen one poster calling out Cade Davis.

I also agree with BT, you can learn to hold on to a lead. I think a lot of it has to do with youth and they will learn with experience how to do it. They are finally learning to play defense, finally learning to play as a team, now we just need to learn to finish games off. This team is so close to 4-1 in conference.

 

[sooners123]

The team has talent and heart(in the sense of passion). We lack killer instinct and basketball IQ though... which can be developed. To forge a championship team out of this nucleus is possible(in the future), but it won't be easy. We will need some luck and a couple of unexpected stars. Here's to some Sooner magic, on the basketball court though for once!

 

[SoonerEyeDoc]

I agree. While I overestimated the ability of the upperclassmen (and WW's leadership potential) to lead this young group of talented players and certainly am disappointed they haven't played better, they are improving as a whole which is all I can ask for. With another good incoming recruiting class and another year of maturity for the current group of freshmen (and departure of Warren) they will be a much better team and hopefully be looking at returning to the NCAA's in 2011.

 

[drmouse]

Nonsense. Of course you can learn to hold a lead or finish a team off. You can manage the clock down the stretch, limit your shot selection, not force it on offense, work on hitting FTs when you are tired in practice. And those are just some things right off the top of my head.

If that were true then once a team learns to hold a lead then the rest of the season they would do it , or once they learn to finish a team off then they would do it every night. In all the time I played basketball, I never had a coach say tonight we are going to learn to hold a lead, or tonight we will learn to finish a team off. all the things you are talking about are things you will be working on every day not just with a lead or to put the hammer down on someone, and trying to do those things doesn't always work. the very best teams lose leads and fail to put the hammer down on someone, that doesn't mean they need to learn to do that. what they need to learn to do is play with their best effort and skills every night and even then on some nights their best efforts and skills aren't good enough. I have no complaints about the effort of Capel's teams, but I do disagree with bench jockeys who say the team hasn't learned certain things. show me a very good nba team's record and you will see they haven't always held a lead or haven't always hammered another team when they had a big lead, so are you saying they haven't learned to hold a lead or hammer a team either. come on guys you are smarter than that. sometimes the best way to lose a lead is to try to slow down your play and manage the clock, thus leading to forced shots when the time clock runs out. I guess you never saw Billy tubb's or nolan richardson's teams play. I will admit when you have a 5 point lead with 2 minutes to play you might slow it up a little, but any time before that I want my team to play to their strengths not to watch the clock or the lead. as to hammering someone, you do that because you can do it ,maybe because you are the better team or because you are better that night, not because some coach taught you to do it or somehow you learned to do it.