seniorsooner
New member
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
- Messages
- 5,168
- Reaction score
- 0
http://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/article.aspx?subjectid=92&articleid=20090424_92_B1_NORMAN228959
OU puts trust in Warren as ‘the guy’
by: GUERIN EMIG, World Sports Writer
Friday, April 24, 2009
NORMAN — Blake Griffin did more than set up Oklahoma’s Elite Eight 2008-09 season when he announced he would play a sophomore year.
He helped set up the Sooners for 2009-10.
Asked recently how much Griffin’s decision influenced his own to come back next year for a sophomore season, OU guard Willie Warren said: “That had a lot to do with it.”
Griffin returned and became the national player of the year and the sure-bet No.
1 pick in the NBA draft. Warren was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, but he was second chair to Griffin.
“Next year will be different because he’ll be the guy,” OU coach Jeff Capel said. “But I think this experience as a freshman of coming in and learning from a guy like Blake will help him.
“Blake as a freshman was good. He came back as a sophomore and was special and had a special season. He learned a lot from his freshman year. He learned how to work. He learned how to prepare.
“Hopefully we can see the same sort of progress from Willie.”
That is Warren’s plan, apparent from his to-do list for the upcoming offseason.
“I need to really work on being conditioned well,” he said for starters. “There were a lot of games, like Michigan and North Carolina (in the NCAA Tournament) where I had to play a lot of minutes.
I couldn’t get any air at all. I was breathing hard.
“I need to work on being able to come off ball screens to the left side of the court, and just my mid-range game.
I didn’t show my mid-range game as much as I needed to.” Ballhandling will be a focus as well. Warren hinted toward the end of last season that he’d like to play more point guard next year, with three-year starter Austin Johnson having moved on.
“Just whatever Coach Capel tells me,” he said.
“We’ll see,” Capel said.
“Those questions are hard for me to answer now because I haven’t seen my team. I haven’t seen who we’re going to be next year.
But he’ll have the ball in his hands a lot. He’ll be a guy we look to to make plays for us.”
“I would like to show that I can play the (point) a little bit more,” Warren said. “But we have Tommy Mason- Griffin coming in, a McDonald’s All-American. I trust him with the ball as much as I trust anybody. I saw him play growing up.”
Trust has become a big deal for Warren. Chalk it up to something else he learned from his year with Griffin.
“(Griffin) coming back and trusting the team that was coming in, we made a push to the Elite Eight,” Warren said. “And that’s the same trust I’ve got in next year’s team …
“We have me and ‘Crock’ (starting guard Tony Crocker) coming back, Juan Pattillo coming back, Orlando Allen, Ryan Wright, who was part of a Final Four team at UCLA. So I feel like I’m coming back into what Blake was coming back into this year.”
It could be a lot of fun.
“We can’t just come down and throw it into Blake to bail us out,” Warren said.
“We’re going to be a lot more, I feel, run-and-gun.
There will be a lot more ball screens involved to get our guards looks. I feel like it will be a lot more open.
We’ll have a lot of playmakers at the guard spot. We’ll be like Villanova and Memphis were this year. We’ll be tough to handle.”
Griffin used OU’s 2008 NCAA Tournament loss to Louisville as motivation.
It sounds like Warren will use the Sooners’ most recent elimination in the same vein.
“I feel like we were a better team than we showed in that North Carolina game,” he said. “And I feel like we have a better team coming in next year to where we shouldn’t go out like that.
To have that opportunity to play on that stage in front of all those people, you don’t always get that chance.
“I want to win a national championship or at least go to a Final Four. I won (a championship) in high school, and I just want to get one at every level if that’s possible.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guerin Emig 58 -8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
OU puts trust in Warren as ‘the guy’
by: GUERIN EMIG, World Sports Writer
Friday, April 24, 2009
NORMAN — Blake Griffin did more than set up Oklahoma’s Elite Eight 2008-09 season when he announced he would play a sophomore year.
He helped set up the Sooners for 2009-10.
Asked recently how much Griffin’s decision influenced his own to come back next year for a sophomore season, OU guard Willie Warren said: “That had a lot to do with it.”
Griffin returned and became the national player of the year and the sure-bet No.
1 pick in the NBA draft. Warren was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, but he was second chair to Griffin.
“Next year will be different because he’ll be the guy,” OU coach Jeff Capel said. “But I think this experience as a freshman of coming in and learning from a guy like Blake will help him.
“Blake as a freshman was good. He came back as a sophomore and was special and had a special season. He learned a lot from his freshman year. He learned how to work. He learned how to prepare.
“Hopefully we can see the same sort of progress from Willie.”
That is Warren’s plan, apparent from his to-do list for the upcoming offseason.
“I need to really work on being conditioned well,” he said for starters. “There were a lot of games, like Michigan and North Carolina (in the NCAA Tournament) where I had to play a lot of minutes.
I couldn’t get any air at all. I was breathing hard.
“I need to work on being able to come off ball screens to the left side of the court, and just my mid-range game.
I didn’t show my mid-range game as much as I needed to.” Ballhandling will be a focus as well. Warren hinted toward the end of last season that he’d like to play more point guard next year, with three-year starter Austin Johnson having moved on.
“Just whatever Coach Capel tells me,” he said.
“We’ll see,” Capel said.
“Those questions are hard for me to answer now because I haven’t seen my team. I haven’t seen who we’re going to be next year.
But he’ll have the ball in his hands a lot. He’ll be a guy we look to to make plays for us.”
“I would like to show that I can play the (point) a little bit more,” Warren said. “But we have Tommy Mason- Griffin coming in, a McDonald’s All-American. I trust him with the ball as much as I trust anybody. I saw him play growing up.”
Trust has become a big deal for Warren. Chalk it up to something else he learned from his year with Griffin.
“(Griffin) coming back and trusting the team that was coming in, we made a push to the Elite Eight,” Warren said. “And that’s the same trust I’ve got in next year’s team …
“We have me and ‘Crock’ (starting guard Tony Crocker) coming back, Juan Pattillo coming back, Orlando Allen, Ryan Wright, who was part of a Final Four team at UCLA. So I feel like I’m coming back into what Blake was coming back into this year.”
It could be a lot of fun.
“We can’t just come down and throw it into Blake to bail us out,” Warren said.
“We’re going to be a lot more, I feel, run-and-gun.
There will be a lot more ball screens involved to get our guards looks. I feel like it will be a lot more open.
We’ll have a lot of playmakers at the guard spot. We’ll be like Villanova and Memphis were this year. We’ll be tough to handle.”
Griffin used OU’s 2008 NCAA Tournament loss to Louisville as motivation.
It sounds like Warren will use the Sooners’ most recent elimination in the same vein.
“I feel like we were a better team than we showed in that North Carolina game,” he said. “And I feel like we have a better team coming in next year to where we shouldn’t go out like that.
To have that opportunity to play on that stage in front of all those people, you don’t always get that chance.
“I want to win a national championship or at least go to a Final Four. I won (a championship) in high school, and I just want to get one at every level if that’s possible.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guerin Emig 58 -8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
