OU's disappointing season offers Lon Kruger a chance to reflect, not rage
by Tulsa World Sports Columnist Guerin Emig Posted: Tuesday March 7, 2017 10:57 am
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lon Kruger is among college basketball’s most practical coaches, and so when asked if he ever considered getting his first technical foul at Oklahoma at some point during this 11-19 season, he laughs and says: “Well, if I thought it would help...”
Kruger has more Atticus Finch in his blood than Bobby Knight. The chairs in the Sooners’ locker room remain unsnapped, the walls uncracked, the doors undented.
But do not mistake that to mean Kruger is unfazed by his program’s major step backward from its magnificent run to the 2016 Final Four. A man can be practical and still want to kick your tail at rock/paper/scissors.
“You always say, ‘What could we have done differently? What can we do differently?’” Kruger says as he crosses one leg over another following a recent pre-Big 12 Tournament practice. “‘How can I say it differently? How can we do things differently in practice to give them more confidence or execute things better?’ You spend every hour of the day thinking about how to do things better or get better results.
“It always comes back to being our responsibility. Always. Everything.”
His practicality is kicking in again. Kruger is the one recruiting the players and designing the plays. He is the one making $3 million.
When his players keep making the same mistakes at the end of winnable games… Well, what’s the old adage? You win because of the players and lose because of the coach?
“I think that’s the way most coaches think,” Kruger says. “Yeah, most leaders. Whether it be family or business or coaches, that’s a healthy perspective for leaders. That means they are trying to invest everything possible to try to figure out how to get better. Because once that stops happening, it’s not going to get better.
“Right, wrong or indifferent, I think that’s a good perspective for a leader to have.”
Grating as this season has been, there will be no Sooners tossed under the bus that rolls out of the team’s Kansas City hotel this week. Kruger won’t rant, rave or curse when he meets individually with players in the coming days.
“No,” he says. “We want to continue to expect a lot and yet be positive and constructive with our critique, while motivating them to play hard hopefully.”
Just because the record changes — this was Kruger’s worst regular season since going 11-16 at Florida in 1990-91 — doesn’t mean the tone has to. Or the blueprint.
The scoreboard is still very much in Kruger’s favor: 23 winning seasons vs. 8 losing ones. He is too sensible to trash everything that has worked over the course of three decades because of one lousy ninth-place conference finish.
The rookie coach at Pan American in 1982? He might have torn down and started over. The 64-year-old Sooners sage hates losing just as badly, but he understands there are bigger things than squandering a double-digit second-half lead at Kansas.
“Oh, for sure,” Kruger says. “Just in terms of patience with regard to understanding it’s a process. That’s what relates to our main focus to get better every day, get better every day. That’s a process, as opposed to reacting to every moment, every loss.
“Yeah. You go through good and bad, but still it’s about getting better the next day. I didn’t have that same perspective as a 29-year-old coach.”
And so the Sooners arrive at the Sprint Center for Wednesday’s Big 12 first-rounder against TCU more concerned with an 83-73 score than an 11-19 record. How can they improve from their 10-point victory over the Horned Frogs last Saturday?
This was Kruger’s way a year ago, when he gathered Buddy Hield, Isaiah Cousins and Ryan Spangler after every practice and, even as they stormed to the No. 1 ranking in January and the Final Four in April, urged them to be better. This is Kruger’s way now.
The players are different and so are the results. Everyone is frustrated, especially the head coach who can tick off the string of late-game leads that melted in defeat.
Everyone, though, continues their work. Everyone goes about the process. That, too, goes especially for the head coach as he nears the end of one of his most disappointing seasons.
“Obviously not winning games, you never want to go through that. We’ve had a few this year that have been more difficult than any for a while,” Kruger says. “And yet without winning games, the challenge is still to fight and compete and improve.”
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