Count me among those who are thrilled with Saturday's comeback win.
It seems to me the Sooners, especially the three freshmen and M'Baye, are beginning to prove their worth to all the doubters. To me, it seems obvious this Sooner team is much-improved over last year's squad. It just took a little time for the freshman to find their games, for M'Baye to regain his confidence and for the returning players to get adjusted to their new and different roles.
Kruger is a great college coach. He knew exactly what he was doing by playing (and staying with) the freshmen when they were playing like freshmen early in the season. That's why he recruited and signed those kids to come to OU in the first place. Unlike our previous coach (yes, I was one of the Caple defenders), CLK is a great judge of talent and he normally won't give a scholarship to a player unless he's confident the kid can play and will fit into his system. I'm convinced that Kruger knew Hield, Hornbeak, Cousins and M'Baye were the kind of players he wanted, and that all four would contribute in their first year as Sooners.
Surely no one is saying we beat WV on the road simply because we're lucky or WV is just a bad team. No matter how "down" the Mountaineers are this season, it takes more than luck to go into Morgantown and beat a Bob Huggins coached team. If these Sooners ARE lucky, it's because they've got Lon Kruger as their coach, AND he's upgrading the talent level and teaching them how to win against Big XII level competition.
I'm not ready to predict that the Sooners will make the tournament this year, though I'll be disappointed if we don't. But I do predict that our days of playing the pushover to most of the teams in the Big XII are officially over.
