Oklahoma basketball finds a way to embarrass themselves against a horrible OSU team
by Jordan Esco on Jan 9, 2012 8:36 PM CST
in Basketball
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PrintI say for now because Monday night was just a precursor to how bad it's going to get this season. All of the goodwill earned from the over achievement during the non-con portion of this schedule is dead. The Missouri game was miserable. The second half of the KU game was painful to watch. Monday night was flat out embarrassing.
Oklahoma State sucks. They are a horrible basketball team. Which begs the question, if those statements are true (and they are) what the heck does that make Oklahoma?!?
The final score of 72-65 is incredibly misleading. The Sooners were out of this game before halftime and things only got worse in the second half. Honestly, I'm at a loss for words with how to describe this basketball team right now. They are just terrible.
Carl Blair was the leading scorer with 20 points and no offense to the young man, but if there is ever a game where Carl Blair is our leading scorer we're losing that game 1000% of the time.
While suffering through this game, I'm pretty sure Romero Osby listened to our podcast from last night. He was much more aggressive on the offensive end (finally!), repeatedly taking the ball strong to the basket. His 1-5 free throw shooting didn't help very much, but he did finish with a double/double getting 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Steven Pledger was horrible (3-13 shooting), Cam Clark got in foul trouble but was ineffective (four points) yet again aside from a brief stretch, Sam Grooms continues to regress (two points on 1-7 shooting), and Tyler Neal provided absolutely nothing (zero points) off the bench.
Losing is one thing. We all knew the expectations were very low for this team despite getting our hopes up as they ran through a weak non-con schedule. But losing like this to a crappy OSU team is another thing entirely. I'm gonna stop there before I say something I might regret and just hope that Kruger can work some kind of miracle with this team because after what I saw tonight anything short of that and this team might be lucky to get three conference wins.
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It is evident....
that Kelvin Sampson and Jeff Capel did more damage to this program than we will ever know. It may take years if not decades to recover.
I'm a Sooner Born and a Sooner Bred, and when I die I'll be a Sooner Dead!!!
This team...
What was that mess last night? I think Cam Clark is a head case, he’s either lights out or too timid to shoot. Which is weird when a kid has the tool set he does. The fact that Lon benches him for stretches and during crucial moments has told me all I need to know.
This team needs someone to step up on offense, and I’m glad Carl Blair showed initiative.
The shooting is down right horrible, so much that I wince every time a shot goes up. I still have faith in Lon Kruger, and OU has exceeded many of my expectations this year, but this current slump in play needs to be righted.
by BringBackTopDawg on Jan 10, 2012 6:43 AM CST reply actions
Just to clarify
Again, I wasn’t trying to bash on Blair as we so very obviously need scoring off the bench. So if he can provide that then super. That said, I stand by what I said that if he’s our leading scorer then we’re losing. Every time IMO.
I agree 100%
Blair isn’t our most talented player ( in fact, a fair share of bad decisions seem to come from his hands) so when he has a good night, you have to wonder what happened.
by BringBackTopDawg on Jan 10, 2012 11:08 AM CST up reply actions
Agreed
he’s just not that good. If he’s our leading scorer, we’re in a lot of trouble. Is it too early to say that Cam Clark is a huge disappointment?
It's not what it used to be
Not only was the game terrible but the atmosphere was terrible. I can remember when Bedlam meant something and fans showed up in the thousands. Last night GIA was maybe 70% full. I guess thats what happens when you have two bad teams playing each other.
I hope something changes soon and the Sooners can start firing on all cylinders but right now its difficult to even watch.
I think for the first time this season we took a step backwards.
There are a few of things that stood out to me that need to be corrected:
1. Defending the pick and roll is elementary. Literally, you learn this in elementary school. I know it can be tough to defend if executed properly, and OSU did just that. However, it would not have been near as effective if we had been even remotely prepared for it, or if we had adjusted to it more effectively.
2. Help defense is elementary. Again, you learn this in elementary school. We appeared at times not to understand our roles defensively. We had players out of position (underneath especially) on a number of occasions that led to easy baskets.
3. I understand the value of second chance opportunities. However, a maximum of 3 players should be committed to an offensive rebound at any one time if you are going to effectively transition into defense. OSU took advantage of our agressiveness towards the offensive boards by turning routine defensive rebounds into transition baskets.
4. Midway thru the first half after getting ourselves back into a respectable position on the scoreboard, the momentum went back to OSU. There was much that could have been done to stop the bleeding, instead we took 3 or 4 timeouts with us to the locker room. I’m not sure what we done with them there, but I would rather have used them during the momentum swing in the first half.
I’m not trying to rip the team or the coaching staff. I’m on board with these guys in a big way, it’s just going to take some time to right this ship. As DGiroux eluded to in his comment above, these problems didn’t just occur overnight. If we are to believe they will be fixed overnight would be just setting ourselves up for even more disappointment.
There were some bright spots
We have a couple guys that know how to win.
We have a lot of guys that really don’t know what team D is all about.
I’ll agree there was a meltdown at the end the sealed the deal.
mjc
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