Team turnover

[psk2080]

Let's assume that the following players are gone, based upon the various rumors floating around and graduating seniors:

Wright
Crocker
Gerber
Mason-Griffin
Warren
Allen
Gallon
Willis

That would leave the following players as returnees:

Pledger
Franklin (walkon)
Fitzgerald
Randolph (walkon)
Hardrick
Davis
Honore (walkon)

With possibly only 4 returning scholarship players and 3 returning walkons, that would be nearly a complete turnover of the roster. When was the last time OU only had 4 returning scholarship players? Of course, that's assuming that ALL of the rumored transfers actually occur.

With Clark and Taylor committed, OU would have 6 scholarship players. With the scholarship limit at 13, OU would have to sign 7 more players to be at the scholarship limit.

It almost reminds me of the situation Baylor was in after Bliss. I believe they only had 4 scholarship players returning and had to hit the juco ranks hard to fill out their roster (if memory serves me correctly). Drew was a good enough recruiter and coach to get them to where they are now, but it didn't happen overnight. Is Capel capable of doing the same thing? It's so late in the recruiting season, will OU even have 8 or 9 scholarship players next year? A real concern could be whether or not OU has enough quality players to even effectively practice next season. That could certainly make it even more difficult to rebuild the program.

Much of this has been discussed already, but I wanted to throw the Baylor comparison out there in order to offer eventual hope.

 

[Seymore Cox]

Let's talk about this tommorrow. It's bash KU day,

 

[BigTime]

No kidding. This thread just made me throw up a little in my mouth.

 

[Sooner23]

Back to reality.

 

[MercedeSooner]

wha ?

 

[BigTime]

Back to reality.

Whoop there goes gravity.

 

[psk2080]

I don't get the satisfaction many get by bashing KU this year...if OU had made the Dance I probably would, but my concern for OU outweighs KU right now...

 

[psk2080]

No kidding. This thread just made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Sorry...I didn't mean to make you lose your dinner...

 

[BigTime]

Sorry...I didn't mean to make you lose your dinner...

Its not your fault, bud. Let's all just hope that Aziz and a decent PG decide to come to Oklahoma next year.

 

[SoonerDan74012]

Who would have thought that T.J. Franklin could possibly be our starting point guard to start next season. I am not bashing the kid I am just throwing out that possibility

 

[cfin5256]

It's alright psk; we were just using ku's demise to take our mind off of the trainwreck we had for a season. I have no idea who's staying and who's going, so I'm going to fall back on blind faith in Coach Capel; it's either that or drink(not that that's a bad idea). I think he can turn this around, but I don't think next season's roster will bear more than a passing resemblance to this season's.

 

[NickZepp]

I'm kinda split on this. I think we need to get where we have stability in our program. I would like to see a team full of returning starters. But at the same time I'm not sure this group of guys can work together even over an offseason or into next season. They may gel a bit better together but that really didn't show as the year went on last year. I think they might have been a little worse at the end of the year then they were at times early on in the season. So while I want to see a group grow together and get better. I'm not sure last years group is that group. Maybe the next group can be.

 

[tallandsexy]

Let's assume that the following players are gone, based upon the various rumors floating around and graduating seniors:

Wright
Crocker
Gerber
Mason-Griffin
Warren
Allen
Gallon
Willis

That would leave the following players as returnees:

Pledger
Franklin (walkon)
Fitzgerald
Randolph (walkon)
Hardrick
Davis
Honore (walkon)

With possibly only 4 returning scholarship players and 3 returning walkons, that would be nearly a complete turnover of the roster. When was the last time OU only had 4 returning scholarship players? Of course, that's assuming that ALL of the rumored transfers actually occur.

With Clark and Taylor committed, OU would have 6 scholarship players. With the scholarship limit at 13, OU would have to sign 7 more players to be at the scholarship limit.

It almost reminds me of the situation Baylor was in after Bliss. I believe they only had 4 scholarship players returning and had to hit the juco ranks hard to fill out their roster (if memory serves me correctly). Drew was a good enough recruiter and coach to get them to where they are now, but it didn't happen overnight. Is Capel capable of doing the same thing? It's so late in the recruiting season, will OU even have 8 or 9 scholarship players next year? A real concern could be whether or not OU has enough quality players to even effectively practice next season. That could certainly make it even more difficult to rebuild the program.

Much of this has been discussed already, but I wanted to throw the Baylor comparison out there in order to offer eventual hope.

I hope Capel gets rid of anyone that does not come ready to work. Sometimes you have to learn to get more strict by having year like Capel had this year. I think OU has one of the best recruiters in the big 12. If you get the chance to talk to Capel, you can tell why he is good at getting players to OU. He will learn from this, and I think we will be one of the top teams in the big 12 in 2 years.

 

[Sooner23]

I don't want to think about this anymore. Someone wake me up on signing day.

 

[NickZepp]

I hope Capel gets rid of anyone that does not come ready to work. Sometimes you have to learn to get more strict by having year like Capel had this year. I think OU has one of the best recruiters in the big 12. If you get the chance to talk to Capel, you can tell why he is good at getting players to OU. He will learn from this, and I think we will be one of the top teams in the big 12 in 2 years.

I'm sure Capel is a decent recruiter just has had a lot of bad luck but how can anyone say this right now? Look at his recruiting classes that he has gotten year after year and they haven't panned out at all. There's a good reason we are in a mess right now and it isn't Sampson's class. In fact Sampson's players were a big reason for our Elite 8. The player he got in his 4 years here is Blake Griffin and that's a type of guy we should always get at Oklahoma. His brother was on the team for Christ sake. If he didn't get him then he shouldn't be a college basketball coach.

 

[qwertyqaz]

The player he got in his 4 years here is Blake Griffin and that's a type of guy we should always get at Oklahoma. His brother was on the team for Christ sake. If he didn't get him then he shouldn't be a college basketball coach.

cool it man, just cool it.

 

[psk2080]

The bad thing for me is that there are ALOT of very good players with good character who would love to play at a school with the tradition of Oklahoma...they don't have to be MCD AA's...they don't even have to be on the watch lists...OU could (and always has been) very successful without having a roster full of all-stars...at this point, I don't think OU should even target those types of guys unless they are homegrown talent...and even then, OU should be VERY cautious in recruiting them...I'd rather have 5 3-stars for 4 years than 5 5-stars for 1 year...

 

[NickZepp]

I don't care about stars. There's a lot of stars in the sky. We need guys that want to play at OU for four years and play their asses off. We need fewer 6-9 300 lb guys with the nickname of something small and more Cade Davis type guys. We would have a hard time losing with 5 Cade Davis type players that play their hearts out.

 

[psk2080]

That's the point I was making...I just used stars to illustrate my point...give me lesser talented blue collar types that want to play defense, rebound and hustle...

 

[SoonerinNC]

You had a coach that recruited that way and coached that way and many of you couldn't wait to see him gone.

It is always easy to judge someone after the fact.

Capel is going to be around for a while. He may or may not make it but let's support him while he is here.

For whatever reason he couldn't bring this team together this year but that doesn't condem him to always be a bad coach.