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http://soonersports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/072810aaa.html
NORMAN, Okla. -- July is a notoriously hectic month for college basketball head coaches as they travel thousands of miles and log countless hours evaluating prospects from coast to coast. And if you're Oklahoma head coach Jeff Capel in 2010, that comes on the heels of a 16-day stint as head coach of the gold-medal-winning USA team at the FIBA U18 Championship.
Spare moments are rare this time of year for Capel, who's entering his fifth season at OU. But SoonerSports.com was able to pin him down for a two-part Q&A in which he discussed his summer, last year's team, changes in the program and his expectations for 2010-11.
Here's part one:
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Q: Can you reflect on your USA Basketball experience with the U18 team this summer and what it meant to you?
A: "It was a great experience. Anytime you have an opportunity to represent your country, it's a tremendous honor. The fact we were doing it in our home country made it even more special. We had a tremendous group of young guys who came together to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
"The games themselves were very, very good. It was great to see that team come together and to see the guys push themselves to limits they didn't know they could. I really love how we won the gold medal because we overcame adversity. We were down nine with 8:53 left and our guys showed a resiliency and a resolve that I'm not even sure they knew they had. You could really see and sense the level of pride on that team during those last nine minutes to get back in and win the game. For me as a coach, it was great to be a part of that."
Q: Is there anything else besides your association with that gold medal that you were personally able to take away from the experience?
A: "You have a chance to be around different coaches. During the trials, you have everyone from the committee there. So you have a chance to pick their brain, talk to them about different parts of the game. Once we cut the team down to 12, it was (Georgia Tech head coach) Paul Hewitt, (Buffalo head coach) Reggie Witherspoon and myself. It was great to bounce different ideas off of them and just talk basketball for 16 days straight. It was great to be able to coach in the summer and to be around guys that bought into what we were doing, bought into being a part of something bigger than themselves. That's what 'team' is about. We didn't have much time to become a team, but I thought we did become one."
Q: Last year was obviously a difficult one, but were you able to take anything positive away from it? What were some of the primary things the returning players learned from it?
A: "Winning isn't necessarily a birthright. It's something you have to earn. You earn it by how you work leading up to the season. You can't just turn it on when the games start. It begins with your summer preparation -- mentally and physically. That's when you start to form your team.
"You have your new guys coming in, you have your returning guys. Every year is different, so you hope to establish some sort of leadership in the summer. We never did that last summer. You hope to establish a work ethic, and that usually comes from older guys in the program. That never happened last summer. Hopefully our returning guys learned what not to do. Hopefully they learned that when you don't do those things you can't expect to have success."
Q: What have the players told you about their workouts this summer?
A: "It seems like they're working hard. I've been on the road a lot with USA Basketball and with recruiting, but I stay in contact with our guys through text and by calling. There are quite a few guys who when I contact them at night are either on their way to the gym or leaving the gym. That's different than last summer.
"I think because of what happened last year, our returning players have more of a hunger, a little bit more of a desire to not let that happen again. I think maybe they've worked harder than they've ever worked.
"One of the encouraging things from the spring was that everyone's mile time decreased. We had six weeks after the season before school let out and we tested our guys before exam week. Steven Pledger finally broke six minutes. Andrew Fitzgerald was right at six minutes. Andrew's down to 237 pounds. Those guys have embraced how hard we have to work. In turn, that's set an example for the new guys.
"One of the things with our new guys is that all of them feel like they have something to prove. Carl Blair, coming from the University of New Orleans, is excited to be at a place like Oklahoma. Same thing with (junior college transfers) Nick Thompson and C.J. Washington. You can go on down the list. They're excited and there's been a different energy. It's something we look forward to harnessing and working with when we get to August."
Q: From a personal standpoint, how would you describe your attitude toward the upcoming season?
A: "There's been a different energy around here and I'm excited about it. I'm excited to see what we become. We still have expectations. We want to become the best team we can be -- hopefully vie for one of the top spots in the Big 12 and make the NCAA Tournament. Mainly, we want to work hard every day, get better every day. In order to do that, we have to come to work with the right mindset every day.
"How good will we be? I don't know. We have a lot of new guys. Even our returning guys -- we hope they've gotten a lot better. Once we start in August we'll get a better feel for where we are. We'll figure out what our strengths are, concentrate on them and use them to become the best team we can be."
Q: Outside of Cade Davis, there's not a ton of experience with the players that return from last year. Have you ever had a team where even the sophomores are going to be looked at as leaders?
A: "Not really, no. Maybe you could liken it a little to my first year here when we had David Godbold and Michael Neal coming back with significant experience and not really anyone else. Guys like Austin Johnson, Taylor Griffin, Longar Longar and Nate Carter really hadn't played that much. Blake Griffin was a leader his sophomore year (in 2008-09), but that was completely different. As a coach, I've never been in a situation like this."
Q: Will you lean on what you learned your first year at OU?
A: "I'll lean on that a little bit. I also had an experience as a player that's somewhat similar to what we've gone through the last two years. As a freshman at Duke, we played for a national championship. As a sophomore, we were 13-18 overall and 2-14 in the ACC. We had two lottery picks on that team and another guy who was a second-round pick. So we were talented, but we weren't a good basketball team. We never came together, the chemistry wasn't there. We lost a lot of close games.
"We came back my junior year and, because of what we had just gone through, we didn't want that to happen again. We were more talented when I was a sophomore, but our team was better when I was a junior because we were a team. We understood how much we needed each other. I thought guys made a commitment to work. Because of that we made the NCAA Tournament, which was great for that team. I'll look back on that experience as well to help push buttons and try to become the best team we can be."
