OU's men's basketball team basically went unchallenged during their trip to Vancouver. While the Sooners blew away the competition - winning 81-62, 86-57, 107-58 and 90-61 - there were several other good things to benefit the Sooners on this trip.
Having the opportunity to practice and play competitively over a month before anyone else will only make this team stronger when the actual season arrives and the team chemistry that was developed over the weekend was invaluable.
We also got the opportunity to see the new guys in action over the weekend including freshman Blake Griffin's first appearance in a Sooner jersey. Griffin led OU in scoring during three of the four games averaging 20 points a contest and pulling down enough rebounds for multiple double-doubles showing that he just might be as good as advertised.
How much work did the new guys get? For the third game of the trip Jeff Capel started freshmen Cade Davis, Blake Griffin and Tony Neysmith, junior college transfer Omar Leary and sophomore Keith Clark and allowed them to "run and gun" to the tune of 107 points. Could that possibly be the future style of Sooner basketball?
We won't know the full dividends of this trip until late October but right now its looking like it has paid off pretty well.