Youth

[oSuJeff97]

Our most athletic player is Cade Davis.

Come on, Nick. You know that's ridiculous.

TMG is a freak. He has no problem blowing past any guard in the Big 12 right now while he's dribbling the ball. That's called being an athletic freak.

Gallon and Crocker are also both VERY athletic.

I really don't know if OU is really that athletic. That's why we are so bad on defense.

You're so bad on defense because some of your highly athletic players don't really have any interest in playing defense. You only have to watch a couple of OU games to see that.

Again, we've seen what these guys can do when they are interested in playing defense. They were very good defensively in both the OSU and Texas games in LNC. Two rivalry games where they actually looked like they cared about playing defense.

 

[NickZepp]

I don't know, Chris Paul may be my favorite player in the NBA right now. I don't know if there's a better guard in the leage than him when healthy.

 

[NickZepp]

Come on, Nick. You know that's ridiculous.

TMG is a freak. He has no problem blowing past any guard in the Big 12 right now while he's dribbling the ball. That's called being an athletic freak.

Gallon and Crocker are also both VERY athletic.

TMG is small and compact Sorta like Lavender for us a few years back but I think he is a better offensive weapon. But he isn't that quick on the defensive end right now and as opposed to what we've had the last few years he plays small at the point. Some of this is inexperience. But Cade Davis has the most speed apparently he is our best runner in practice probably our stongest athlete and on the court he plays long. Crocker does those too but I'm not sure if he's quite as athletic as Cade is. Gallon plays like he's a 6-2 guard trying to defend 7 foot big guys inside. He doesn't play to his athletic ability if he has any.

 

[oSuJeff97]

But he isn't that quick on the defensive end right now and as opposed to what we've had the last few years he plays small at the point.

So basically you're telling me that TMG is quicker dribbling the ball than when he's not.

Because his "quickness" sure doesn't seem to be a problem on the offensive end.

Just applying Occam's Razor here, which is more likely: (a) TMG magically loses his quickness on the defensive end (b) TMG doesn't try as hard on the defensive end as he does on the offensive end and/or he just doesn't like playing defense.

Gallon plays like he's a 6-2 guard trying to defend 7 foot big guys inside. He doesn't play to his athletic ability if he has any.

Again this is a situation where I'm confused as to how a player can be so effective on one end of the floor, but a non-factor on the other end.

It doesn't have anything to do with athleticism... it has to do with desire to play defense.

Here's the thing: playing good and consistent defense takes EFFORT... not just effort on a few trips here and there... effort on every single trip down the floor.

Go back and look at some of those Kelvin Sampson and Eddie Sutton teams from the mid-to-late 1990s... before say the Mason and Najera led teams really got going. There were no world-class athletes on those teams... but they put out EFFORT at all five positions on every defensive trip down the floor.

 

[IndySooner]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Jeff, but yes, it's not about athleticism, it's about effort. And that's the problem with this team.

There's only so much that Coach Capel can do about effort. He really can't afford to bench these guys any more than he already has. They like to play hard on the offensive end, but our "Big 3" don't like to play defense.

Hopefully, Coach's comment about schollies being year-to-year will light a fire, but I doubt it.