They won one! @ LaSalle.
Here are my quick and dirty thoughts about Ford.
He is a tremendous upgrade over Sean Sutton, though that is damning with faint praise. He gets his players to play hard, which is something that I think gets overlooked for a lot of coaches and can mask some coaching deficiences.
His recruiting classes have improved every year, which is a nice trend. I think he draws up some good gameplans, however, I think he is either too stubborn or too inexperienced or not a quick enough thinker to change those plans if they turn out not to work.
I think he did a poor job of putting this year's team together, but a large part of that might have been the collosal disappointment that was Ray Penn. I also think this team makes the tournament if Gulley doesn't get hurt in November and D. Williams doesn't get caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.
It is also hard to remember that he is only 41 years old, which is pretty young for a coach, especially one at a High-Major school. I do think Holder was premature in giving him the long extension, but it isn't that big of a deal. Ford also spearheaded the fundraiser to get the new locker rooms, which have to be considered top 10 in all of college basketball, which is a plus both for Ford and for OSU's future without Ford.
Is he a better coach than Capel, I'd say yes. But, keep in mind I didn't watch many OU games when they weren't playing OSU. The ones I watched the most were the 08-09 season, which I watched just to see Blake Griffin, and I could not understand how Griffin could go a single posession without at least putting his hands on the ball, and as good as that team was, I think they should have been better. And there should have been absolutely no way that OSU team should have even come close to them, let alone beat them when Griffin was being guarded by Anthony Brown and Marshall Moses.
