Tilting at Windmills

Wayman Tisdale is Oklahoma basketball.

It’s not an understatement and it’s not overselling the impact of a recently-deceased, beloved player to say that without Wayman’s contributions to the Sooners in the early 80s, the OU basketball program would not be where it is today. Certainly, the entire landscape of OU’s great run from ’84 to ’91 would be different.

Former OU All-American Stacey “Sky” King came out and said flatly yesterday that he went to OU because of Wayman:

“Wayman’s one of the biggest reasons why I chose Oklahoma. I wanted to be part of something special and it made logical sense to go to OU because I wanted to pattern my game after him. I wanted to be like him. People used to talk about ‘Be like Mike (Michael Jordan),’ but I wanted to be like Wayman. We’ve lost a special person. I don’t think there will ever be another Wayman Tisdale.”

His last point is the biggest one: there will never be another Wayman. It’s not that we won’t see a player like him again just because some of his records (namely, the scoring and rebounding) at OU might not ever be broken. It’s because of the impact Wayman had as a man on so many lives.

CNN.com, NPR, NBA.com, ESPN … there was hardly a media outlet yesterday that didn’t have the passing of one of basketball’s brightest stars as their lead story. We wouldn’t see this if he were just the greatest player to ever wear a Sooner basketball uniform, though … it’s not like NPR does a story on every basketball player who passes.

Wayman’s #23 was the first number ever retired at the University of Oklahoma, regardless of the sport. He personally gave Blake Griffin permission to wear it and, ironically, Wayman passed just before seeing Griffin become the first Sooner to go #1 in the NBA draft, one slot higher than Wayman went in ’85.

Another bittersweet piece of irony is that Wayman was just elected to the College Basketball Hall of Fame and, although it should have happened years ago, will be posthumously inducted later this year alongside people like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (why aren’t these three guys already in?!?).

Kansas coach and ex-aggie point guard Bill Self, who played on Tisdale’s AAU team, correctly pointed out how Wayman single-handedly brought Oklahoma basketball into the national scope:

“He changed the whole landscape for basketball in our state, from a fun standpoint and from a production standpoint. We were a football state until Wayman came on the scene.”

The son of a preacher, Wayman was a devout man who would attend service in Tulsa on Sunday morning, then head back to Norman for practice Sunday evening, thanks to Billy Tubbs timing practices around the Tiz’s church schedule. Wayman continued giving to charities throughout his life, using his celebrity as both a basketball star and a musician to help forward causes.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody say a bad word about Wayman. Even rivals would not only acknowledge his basketball greatness, but his gentle personality and charisma. Tubbs’ 80s Sooners weren’t interested in making friends with you and they weren’t liked by a lot of people outside of the Sooner nation. Everybody liked Tisdale, though. After he dropped 30 and 15 on you, he’d flash that big smile, put those huge arms around you and make you feel like you two were best friends.

After being the first true freshman All-American in NCAA history, becoming a three-time, first-team All-American (he’s on short list of people who’ve done that, like Pistol Pete, Ewing, Jerry Lucas, Alcindor, Walton, Ralph Sampson and the Big O), leading the 1984 gold medal-winning Olympic team in rebounds (playing alongside Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin and Sam Perkins) and going second in the 1985 draft after Ewing, Tisdale launched a 12-year NBA career that would see him go to three different teams and average 15 ppg over that span. He could have quit right there and had a great story to tell. Wayman wasn’t done, though. Basketball seemed to be just a gateway to doing what he really loved: music.

I’ll admit, when Wayman released his first album Power Forward in 1995, I thought it was just a novelty act by a former athlete. Seven albums and several awards later, we all know different. Watch Wayman play bass and you know this wasn’t some celebrity-turned-musician-wannabe, Dennis Quaid crap going on. Wayman could frickin play. His 2001 release Face to Face reached #1 on the contemporary (read: smooth) jazz Billboard chart.

Now, it’s one thing to be such a great athlete that you start for a dozen years in the NBA. It’s another to be a chart-topping musician. Neither of those careers really leads into the other, nor will either profession give you any benefit of the doubt for having done the other. The music industry isn’t just going to hand you a gold record because you have a sweet, left-handed jumper. The fact he was able to rise to the top of two such diverse industries is an incredible achievement.

Most of us found out about Wayman’s cancer last year in a moving story on ESPN. The 6’9” power forward bassist, who made you wish you had a DVR in 1985 because he was so quick you almost missed his moves, had his right leg amputated just above the knee to try and stop the spread of his painful bone cancer.

I, just as I’m sure most people, thought that this was just another challenge that Wayman would quickly blockout, grab the offensive board and putback the lay in. Surely something like this wasn’t going to take out the Great Wayman Tisdale.

In true Wayman fashion, he quickly showed everyone his courage and willingness to fight.

The horrible news came yesterday morning and hit the entire Sooner nation like a sledgehammer. For me personally, I’m devastated. Just as my dad’s childhood sports hero was Mickey Mantle, mine was Wayman Tisdale. I know a lot of people who feel the same way. I remember Wayman making OU basketball relevant. I remember Wayman dropping 61 points on UTSA in the All-College tournament. I remember Wayman’s unstoppable 12-foot turnaround jumper (if he missed that twice in his career, I’d be surprised).

What I’ll remember most about him, though, is that huge, toothy smile he always flashed. It’s just impossible to think of Wayman and not smile yourself a little. He had the kind of charisma that just made your day better by talking about him or watching his YouTube clips or checking out one of his old games on ESPN Classic. Those of us from Oklahoma feel a special kinship with Wayman as he was one of our own, a homegrown Tulsa Booker T. Washington product.

I lost one of my all-time sports heroes yesterday. The University of Oklahoma lost one of its finest ambassadors. The music world lost a great bass player and musician. The human race lost one of the kindest, most genuine people who has ever walked the planet.

As a memorial, I hope it’s being proposed to rename the floor of Lloyd Noble Center after Wayman. I don’t think you would hear a single argument against it. For a man who gave so much to the university, to the sport of basketball and to people everywhere, it’s the least we can do to honor and thank him for everything he did for all of us.

Friday’s Sweet 16 matchup between your Oklahoma Sooners and the Syracuse Orangemen will be the third time the two schools have met, all in the state of New York. OU came out on the short end of two of those: the first was at Syracuse’s bandbox gym in 1949 before Tim Tebow commanded we cut holes in the peach baskets and before Wilt widened the lane; the second was the 2003 Elite 8 beatdown when not even Kelvin’s sending in YoYo Szendrei to knock Carmelo Anthony over the scorer’s table could keep OU from being sent home.

OU’s lone win in the series? The Tisdale-McCalister Sooners in 1984, running and funning their way to a 98-91 win in front of 22,000 booing fans at what was then the four-year-old Carrier Dome. Tisdale had 33 and 10 while Tmac poured in 26 (it definitely would have been more had there been a 3-point line). The best line of the day came from Tubbs himself, natch.

“We beat a great ballclub today from the almighty Big East, the greatest conference in the world.”

At the time, OU was trying to gain some national respect and got a lot of cred by beating the Cuse in their own house. On Friday, the Sooners will be looking for a different kind of respeck-propa. Some national love is there, but it sure seems like the majority of voices around the country aren’t giving OU much of a chance.

You could have admittedly included your’s truly in that group until getting my head on straight after the Michigan game on Saturday. Sure, Syracuse’s backcourt of Jonny Flynn and domestic abusing tough guy Eric Devendorf is solid, and great guard play has been poison to former PG Capel’s club. Flynn might be playing the best ball of any point in the tournament right now.

"I love you, you bitch!"

Cuse’s big man in the paint, Arinze On- … Oahu … Obi Erie … screw it, you know – the African guy – is a couple of tacos short of three bills on a 6’9” frame and can move his feet reasonably well, so he’s actually somebody who could at least make Agent Smith do the Time Warp before framing a new poster over him.

Turn to the basket, seal your man, pop, lock, finish at the rim.

But …

What exactly will Jim Boeheim’s squad do to counterpunch the Sooners dominant inside attack? Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Syracuse plays a 2-3 zone. By the way, the Cuse is going to pack down into a zone.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Boeheim loves to play zone.

OK, now that we’ve all finished our Western grip spanky-spank on Boeheim’s defensive genius, let me drop some knowledge on you:

Blake will get his. Oomfoofoo, Rick Jackson and Kristof Ongenaet (we’ll just call him “The Trappist”) are equal parts tall, thick and Belgian brewmaster. Jackson’s been in Boeheim’s doghouse lately, though, for having too many appropriately-placed vowels and consonants. They’ll have 15 fouls between them (last time I checked) and just a guess here, but I’m thinking they’ll start beating on Blake like Devendorf on a ho who talks to much.

Willie and AJ can’t get worn out on the defensive end so much that it takes away from their offense. Flynn will be a tough cover, let’s just get that out of the way. However, when AJ’s not suffering from a sprained ankle the back of Willie’s hand bad back, he’s as good of an on-ball defender and shot blocker as any guard left in the tournament. Willie needs to be able to spot the picks and fight through them or Flynn’s gonna pick and roll with one of the bigs all night. The Sooners will also need to rotate quickly on defense and give Willie and AJ lots of help so they don’t burn up their legs trying to keep up with the speed of Syracuse’s guard tandem.

Taylor has to continue playing well in his complimentary role. The Nattily-Attired One has been the primary beneficiary of his brother’s going offedness, averaging 12.5 points and 6 rebounds in the two tournament games. He helps the team best when he smartly goes straight to the rim whenever the ball gets to Blake in the post, many times finding his man is so concerned about not being the piss boy in another ESPN highlight reel that he forgets to block out.

"Yeah, give me pouty ... great! Now give me the come-hither ... super!"

So yes, I’ve come around. I was one of those in awe of the Cuse’s eleventy-million overtimes against UConn, but that was UConn. This is Oklahoma, dammit. The Sooners have not only a great chance to advance to the Elite 8, but they should definitely do it if they keep playing like they have the past week. It’s like Capel took the month of February to tear the team down and now he’s building them back up again. One triteism we know for sure: nobody wants to play the Sooners right now. More to the point, nobody wants to go against Blake Griffin. Ever.

If the Sooners are looking for motivation, they can find it in the fact that with a win on Friday, this club will be just the fifth Sooner team in school history, and the first in 20 years, to notch 30 wins. Not all into the whole history thing, man? Well, Boeheim will be going for his 800th school win and his third win in three tries against OU, and we know the CBS hyperbole machine will be cranked up to 11 for that stat.

Should all other motivation fail, maybe we can ferry Tubbs to Memphis on Friday to give us more pithiness about the largess of Big East basketball. That should do it.

We began talking about OU’s history as a 1 or a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament yesterday, in advance of the 2-seed Sooners’ game with Morgan State tomorrow.

Today we’ll finish the lookback with the 80s Sooners featuring Mookie Blaylock, Sky King and the great Wayman Tisdale.

1989 – 1 seed

The core of OU’s 1988 national runner-up team returned with All-Americans Mookie Blaylock (20 ppg, 6.7 assists, 3.7 steals) and Stacey King (26 ppg, 10 rebounds) leading the way. That year, Blaylock became the first player in NCAA history to notch more than 200 assists and 100 steals in back to back seasons. He also set an NCAA record for most steals in a game (13). Blaylock and King didn’t have Harvey Grant and Ricky Grace anymore, but the Sooners didn’t miss a beat, plugging in people like Tyrone Jones, Terrence Mullins and Skeeter Henry.

This Sooner team averaged 102 ppg, scoring over 130 ppg in three straight games in December and averaged 126 per in two games at the All-College Tournament. The Sooners won a second-straight Big 8 title, but lost the Big 8 tournament championship game to Missouri in Kansas City, which might have cost them placement in the tournament. The selection committee thought they’d be cute and let #16 seed East Tennessee State play in their home state against the #1 seed Sooners in Nashville. The powers that be almost got their wish of seeing a huge upset as OU survived a 72-71 scare from the Buccaneers. Tubbs took it out on La Tech two days later, sending the Bulldogs and future Dallas Mavericks stiff Randy White back home to Ruston with a 124-81 spanking. The 30-win Sooners ran out of gas in the Sweet 16, though, and ran into a future Denver Nugget Bryant Stith, the all-time leading scorer at Virginia. The Cavaliers ended the Sooners’ season with an 86-80 upset in Lexington, KY.

1988 – 1 seed

This was the closest OU has ever come to a national championship in men’s basketball. The ’88 Sooners averaged nearly 103 ppg and all five starters – Stacey “Sky” King (22.3), Harvey Grant (20.9), Mookie Blaylock ( 16.4), point guard Ricky Grace (14.7) and the sharp-shooting Dave Sieger (10.9) – averaged in double figures. Daron Oshay “Mookie” Blaylock was so good and such a popular player both in college and the NBA that “Mookie Blaylock” was actually the name of Pearl Jam before they were Pearl Jam, then the group named their first album after his jersey number (10). Blaylock is arguably considered to be the best guard to ever put on a Sooner uniform. Mookie led the nation in steals that season and set NCAA records for highest per-game steals average (3.8) and most number of steals in a season (150). King went on to grab some NBA hardware during the Michael Jordan Bulls-era’s first threepeat … with Harvey’s brother Horace. Grace is still the standard-bearer for point scorers at OU and Sieger was a more reliable and less hair-gelled Cade Davis. Tubbs had all of the pieces befitting a national championship team that year.

The Sooners won the Big 8 regular season and tournament titles and with their subsequent #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, made quick work of Tennessee-Chattanooga, Auburn, Louisville and Villanova to cruise into the Final Four in Kansas City, beating those four teams by an average of almost 20 points. If there was any doubt about this team, and there shouldn’t have been, it was allayed in the national semifinal when the Sooners took out an NBA-laden Arizona squad, featuring Steve Kerr, Sean Elliot, Tom Tolbert and Jud Buechler, by 18 points. The only thing standing in the Sooners’ way of a national title was to beat a team they’d already beaten twice that year, 26-11 Kansas. There were problems, though: the game was in Kansas City and the Jayhawks were hot.

In one of the best halves of basketball in NCAA championship game history, the two teams traded punches for the first 20 minutes and went to the lockerroom tied at 50 apiece. King and Grant combined for 23 points in the opening half, Sieger drained six threes and the Blaylock-led Sooners defense forced 15 turnovers. The Sooners struggled to score in the second half, though, uncharacteristically getting only 29 points (they usually scored that many the second they stepped off the bus at in ’88) as the King-Grant duo were limited to just 8. OU was within one at 78-77 with less than a minute and the Hawks missed the second shot of a 1-and-1, but the Ed Hightower-led officiating crew called Sieger for pushing Danny Manning in the back, sending him to the line to effectively seal the game.

OU finished the year 35-4, which is to date still the highest single-season win total for any Sooner basketball team.

1985 – 1 seed

Wayman Tisdale’s last hurrah ended too soon. The 6’9” forward with the seven-foot smile was and is everything to the Oklahoma basketball program. You could say that without Tubbs snatching him out of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School, we wouldn’t have seen the kind of success in the later 80s that we did. With apologies to Gar Heard and Alvan Adams, Tisdale put OU hoops on the map. Some of his accolades included being the first true freshman in NCAA history to be named first team AP All-American (’83), finishing with what is still an OU record 25.6 ppg career average, owning the top 2 best scoring seasons in school history, being selected third in the NBA draft (the highest for a Sooner to date, but stay tuned with Blake) and joining a select list of collegiate players with over 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. Tisdale set that last mark in just 104 games. Nobody in the last 25 years has accomplished that feat faster and the people who hit that 2,000-1,000 mark in fewer games than Tisdale have names like Elgin Baylor, Lew Alcindor, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Elvin Hayes.

The Sooners won the Big 8 title that year, going 13-1 in conference, riding Tisdale’s dominance and a great supporting cast of Darryl “Choo” Kennedy (15.7 ppg, 8 rebounds per game), Anthony Bowie (13.4 ppg) and Tim McCalister (13.1 ppg). McCalister, never shy about jacking one up if he was open anywhere inside 30 feet, probably would have averaged more had he played in a different era. The 3-point line didn’t come to the college game until his senior year when he hit 87 in ’87 and averaged nearly 20 ppg, the highest of his career.

After winning the Big 8 tournament and having little trouble with North Carolina A&T and Illinois State, the Sooners got a gift in being sent to Dallas to play in the Regional. When they took off the bow and opened the box, the surprise was The Mailman, Karl Malone, and Louisiana Tech waiting in the Sweet 16. In one of the epic Sooner tournament games in history, Tisdale and the Mailman slugged it out into overtime. Tisdale hit a shot over Malone with :06 to play in the extra period to send OU into the Elite 8 against Keith Lee and Memphis State. Lee proved to be worth every penny that Memphis coach Dana Kirk paid him, pushing the Tigers to a two-point win over the Sooners and into the Final Four, which would later be vacated by the NCAA due to Lee’s fat checkbook.

The Sooners’ 31 wins that year marked the first time that an OU club had eclipsed the 30-win mark.

1984 – 2 seed

The Sooners entered the 1984 tournament with their highest seed ever, led by Wayman Tisdale’s eye-popping 27 ppg. The super-sophomore All-American was surrounded by a cast of role players in David “Truck” Johnson, Jan Pannell, Calvin Pierce and outstanding freshmen like Tim McCalister and Darryl “Choo” Kennedy. This was definitely Tisdale’s team, though. On December 28, 1983, Tisdale dropped 61 points and 22 rebounds on Texas-San Antonio in the All-College tournament. That broke a 27-year-old conference, single-game scoring record that had been set by Wilt Chamberlain in 1956 and is still just one of three 40-20 games in school history (Griffin notched the third one against Tech earlier this year).

Oklahoma went into the NCAA tournament with a Big 8 title and gaudy 29-4 record. In the days when the field was 48 teams and byes were awarded, OU was looming for the Dayton Flyers, who had just knocked off LSU in the first round. In a stunning upset, Roosevelt Chapman scored nearly half of the Flyers’ points to knock off the 2-seed Sooners and Tisdale, 89-85.

Going back to when OU went from a basketball afterthought to a player on the national stage (1982, shout-out Billy Tubbs) through the 2009 season, OU has now been at least 2 seed in the NCAA tournament a total of eight times. Tubbs had four #1 seeds and a #2 seed while Kelvin Sampson had a single #1 and #2 each.

Look at this year’s Sooners squad led by Blake Griffin and Willie Warren and you can see some similarities with past OU tournament squads fronted by guys like Hollis Price and Ace McGhee, Skeeter Henry and Jackie Jones, Mookie Blaylock and Stacey King, and Tim McCalister and the great Wayman Tisdale. All of those teams, including the 2009 version, had strong, All-American caliber, inside-outside presences and posed matchup problems at both guard and forward. None of those teams were without fault and their weaknesses eventually caught up to them, although man … that 1990 team.

In this first of a two-part series, we’ll take a look at the last three times OU was either a #1 or a #2 seed. Tomorrow’s edition will have the juicy and bittersweet Tisdale tournament years, plus the bad aftertaste of Danny and the freaking 11-loss Miracles.

2003 – 1 seed

Coming off of a Final Four year, Sampson replaced Ace McGhee with Kevin Bookout, riding the Oklahoma prep star and senior All-American Hollis Price to a 24-6 record and a third straight Big 12 tournament championship coming into the NCAA tournament. After cruising through South Carolina State and Cal in the first two rounds played in OKC, OU was sent back east to Albany, NY where the Sooners knew if they got past 12th-seeded Cinderella Butler in the Sweet 16, Carmelo Anthony’s Syracuse squad would probably be waiting in the Elite 8. That’s exactly what happened and despite getting the Cuse to play grind-it-out, low-scoring Kelvin ball, the Orangemen (who would go on to win the national championship) hung a 16-point loss on the Sooners, denying Sampson his second straight Final Four.

It was your world, Hollis.

2002 – 2 seed

In the greatest tournament run of the Kelvin Sampson era, the Sooners fell one game short of playing for the national title. The Sooners, behind All-Americans Ace McGhee and Hollis Price, took a 27-4 record and a second straight Big 12 tournament championship into the Big Dance. OU didn’t even blink as they went right through Illinois-Chicago and Xavier in the Dallas sub-regional. Playing in the West Regional in San Jose, the Sooners pimp-slapped Luke Walton and Arizona, then laid the wood in a 16-point win over Missouri in the Elite 8. The run would end in Atlanta, though, as the Sooners, playing in just their fourth Final Four in school history, couldn’t handle Indiana’s shooters and ball movement, dropping a heart-breaking 73-64 decision. The Sooners finished the season 31-5, the second-best record in school history and just the fourth time an Oklahoma team posted 30 wins or more in a season.

True story that I didn’t really get at the time: I was in San Jose for those two games and as OU was cutting down the nets after the Mizzou game, I called Hollis’ dad, then shouted over the crowd at Hollis to come get the phone. Kelvin was closer to me and gave me a strange look. I pointed to Hollis and yelled to Kelvin that I had Hollis Sr. on the phone. In hindsight, maybe Kelvin wasn’t confused at all. Rather, he might have just wanted to borrow my phone to, you know, outwork some other coaches.

Final Four, baby.

1990 – 1 seed

This team was arguably better than the 88 team Billy Tubbs took to the NCAA Finals, and the Sooners were out to prove something with their third straight 1 seed. OU won the Big 8 tournament that year and posted a 26-4 record prior to the Big Dance. Tubbs’ squad was loaded with talent in 1990 and should have been the one to bring OU it’s first ever basketball national championship. OU had six players averaging in double figures, led by senior Skeeter Henry’s 17.3 ppg and William Davis’ 16.6 ppg. Tubbs had a deep lineup and could throw any number of athletes at teams, such as 6’8”, one-year wonder Jackie Jones, point guard Smokey McCovery and former McDonald’s All-American Damon Patterson, while bringing future stars like Kermit Holmes and Jeff Webster (who would finish his career as the third-leading scorer in school history) off the bench. OU won its third straight Big 8 title and was riding a seven-game winning streak heading into the NCAA Tournament, all of the wins by double digits. Thanks to finishing the season #1 in the country, the Sooners got the top seed in the tournament and were sent just 5.5 hours south of Norman to play its opening rounds at the Erwin Center in Austin. After making short work of Towson State in the 1-16 game, it looked like OU would get a chance to cement itself as a national power by taking out North Carolina in the second round. However, Tarheel Rick Fox hit a now-infamous last-second shot off the glass to upset the Sooners, 79-77, and slam the door on what many feel was the great OU basketball team of all time.

Feel free to share your memories here and look for Part 2 tomorrow.

Time for your second-ranked, 24-1 Oklahoma Sooners to try and add to its 12-game winning streak, squaring off against the struggling 12-12 Red Raiders, who have lost 8 out of their last 10.

I just re-watched the Baylor game after watching it live at the Golden Tit in Waco the other night. I’ll combine that post mortem with this one after the game.

A 13th straight win today would be the longest OU winning streak since they won 13 in a row in January 2002.

Tech has not won on the road this year. Anywhere.

Looks like the blue hairs have even showed up today. The Cleveland County Quilting Convention must have been postponed.

OU starts with the same lineup that’s won 24 games: AJ, Willie, Crocker’s sleeves, Blake and Taylor.

Twice down the court, twice into Blake on the low block, twice Tech doesn’t double him. Get’cher popcorn!

Crocker with two bad shots, two defensive lapses and a foul in the first 2.5 minutes.

So after hearing a bunch of silly platitudes about the great defense Crocker played against Baylor (I was there, didn’t see it), his man today has torched OU for 10 points in the first three minutes of the game.

Blake’s on pace for 72 points and 24 rebounds.

Pattillo enters at 14:15 with OU down by 2.

Jeff going with a lineup of O’Leary, AJ, Cade, Pattillo and Blake. Really, you could grab four band geeks to put on the court with Blake today and probably be fine.

Blake sits down at the 12:17 mark at 1:03 p.m., just before the under 12 timeout. The Blake Rest-o-meter clock is on.

Blake is 6-10 from the field. The rest of the team is 2-13 combined. Ugh.

Blake back in at the 9:45 mark at 1:09 p.m. He missed 2.5 minutes of gametime, got 6 minutes of actual rest.

Griffin parents sighting! DRINK!

Blake’s done everything but bang Pat Knight’s wife in the first half. I hope she’s well-rested.

Pat Knight should ask his dad if it’s a good idea not to double Blake.

Blake with a first half double-double and now owns the single-season school record. Alvan Adams and Gar Heard, thank you for your service.

Cade starting to rain threes. Bench scoring, holla.

Blake with 21 and 12 in the first half and now Tech wants to piss him off? I need more popcorn.

Rebounding: Blake 13, Tech 9.

“You don’t need jelly, cause Blake’s bringing the jam!”

Somewhere, Tubbs is loving this game.

Blake is making Tech look like children. I’m almost starting to feel sorry for them. Almost.

Wayman highlights! Can’t see enough of those.

This is the last game OU plays before Texas. They get a week off, then go to Austin. Nice scheduling, Joe C.

Blake sits down with 11:40 to go. With 34 and 20, I bet he’s done.

Cade is just frickin making it rain.

Blake’s back. Capel’s just running the offense, fellers. Nothing to see here.

Oh my lord. Blake did so many fundamentally sound, professional moves on that play … footwork, recognition of where he was on the court, shielding the defender, using the glass …

Tech double-teams Blake for the first time all day aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand … he finds Willie cutting to the lane for a layup.

Capel explaining the double-dribble rule to O’Leary. Good grief.

Rebounding: Blake 23, Tech 18.

Oh dear lord. We’re gonna see that on YouTube, Gerald.

Seriously?

21-point win, Blake goes for 40 and 20, Cade rains threes off the bench, Willie looks good … more in the post mortem.

So, 24 games into the season and being fans of the only 23-win team in the nation, we Windmill Tilters decided it’s probably time we jumped into this strange world called “basketball coverage.”

First, a personal admission: I was a big Kelvin Sampson fan. When I say “was,” I mean “am.” I’m a fan of the way the man coaches basketball. His personal transgressions aside, the man can flat-out coach. That man does more with less than anybody I’ve seen this side of Lyle Lovett’s reflection in the mirror. The knocks on him were that he never could land top flight recruits because they didn’t “fit his system” (partially true), his style was “boring” (only if you don’t really like the sport of basketball), he didn’t know how to coach offense (maybe, it certainly wasn’t his point of emphasis) and his baffling string of first-round NCAA exits (biggest knock I have against the guy).

Look, the guy wasn’t Billy Tubbs. A lot of OU fans seem to think that Sooner basketball began and ended with that crazy mother. Tubbs is another guy who could flat-out coach. He’s reportedly one helluva guy, too, and like just about every member of the Sooner Nation, I was and am still a huge fan of that guy, too.

Times change, though. That was 20 years and 30 (ok, 40) pounds ago.

Kelvin was the salve to the open wound that was beginning to be Sooner basketball in the early 90s. Kelvin eventually ran his course, too, with a lot of success on the court. It was his off-the-court “who me?” petulance that soured him with the rest of Sooner fans who didn’t already hate him just because they didn’t like his particular brand of thuggish, first-team-to-60-wins basketball.

Times change … enter Jeff Capel. Back to the confession: I’m a fan of Kelvin Sampson’s success at OU. It hit me hard when and how he left and took me awhile to warm to Jeff. In just his third season, Capel looks to be another dynamite hire by Joe C and I couldn’t be happier. It’s not out of reach to think we might be entering a Tubbs-like era of success like Billy had in the 80s, only this time Jeff probably won’t be taunting refs into technicals and telling other teams to “get better” if they don’t like 150 points scored on them.

The biggest commonality Capel and Tubbs have early in their careers is signing a franchise player – Tubbs with the great Wayman Tisdale and Capel with maybe an even better player (gasp), Blake Griffin. The fact that both kids are home-grown Oklahoma boys is not lost on Sooner fans who would gladly give up their sister to either one of them.

There’s time to assess what could be down the road for Capel. Right now, let’s look at and enjoy where we are: 23-1, #2 in the nation and sporting the most dominant, intimidating force in the nation with Griffin.

So … how did we get here?

The schedule

In just the third game of the season, OU survived Stephen Curry’s 44 points on national television to down last year’s March Cinderella, Davidson, by four points. Lost in ESPN’s Curry lovefest was that Blake went for 25 points and 21 rebounds. Willie Warren also had his coming-out party with 20 points.

Ten days later, in what looked like would be a pretty stout test, #13 OU was playing in the finals of the NIT Season Tip-off at Madison Square Garden against then 9^th-ranked Purdue. For those who hadn’t yet heard about him, Griffin announced his presence to the nation with authority, bruising the Boilermakers for 18 points and 21 rebounds in an overtime thriller that propelled Oklahoma into the Top 10 for the first time this season.

The only blemish on OU’s 24-game schedule this season came a month after that Purdue game, when OU nearly got run out of the pig barn in Fayetteville. The Hogs turned around a couple days later and did the same thing to Texas, so we didn’t feel so bad about it. However, with the benefit of what we know now, taking out UT like that really wasn’t that big of a deal.

OU hasn’t lost since, is now atop the Big 12 standings and is a UConn slipup away from the coveted #1 ranking in the land.

Key games remaining: Feb. 21 at Texas, Feb. 23 Kansas in Norman on Big Monday, March 4 at Mizzou.

The players

Blake Griffin. If the collective of OU’s opponents was King Edward Longshanks, Blake would be William Wallace telling the English to ride across the field, bend over and kiss its own arse before proceeding to throw down a windmill backboard-breaker between three of their archers at the Battle of Stirling.

Blake is the runaway Big 12 and national Player of the Year, leads the country in rebounding, and is the conference leader in scoring, rebounding, FG percentage and general kickassedry. With apologies to Tisdale and those who still have his poster over their bed (I finally took mine down sometime around ’92), Blake is the most complete basketball player ever to step on the court at the University of Oklahoma. I sincerely hope that every Sooner fan (and college basketball fan, for that matter) savors every minute of ball they see this kid play in a Sooner uniform because you’ll tell your grandkids about him someday. We’ll see him in Crimson for another six weeks or so, then it’s cross your fingers and hope the Thunder can keep him in OKC.

Willie Warren. I said when I saw this kid’s high school highlight reels that he reminded me of DWade. Knowing myself that I’m prone to hyperbole, I tried to contain that thought and do the requisite wait-and-see-what-happens when this kid puts on a pair of Crimson shorts. Turns out, I may have been right. Willie is everything we thought he’d be coming out of Fort Worth: he can fill it up from anywhere on the court, he can get in the lane anytime he wants, he has great vision, he’s probably the best finisher at the rim on the team and is capable of producing Sportscenter Plays of the Day if you go to sleep on him. What’s impressed me the most with this kid is his poise and overall basketball I.Q. Willie knows his role on the team, even if others might not have early on. I have yet to see him force any action (see: Tony Crocker). Instead, he defers to team leaders like Blake, Austin Johnson and Taylor Griffin. At times when OU has needed some backcourt punch because AJ and Crocker are struggling, Willie seems to know just when to pick up his game and give the team the lift it needs. Through 24 games, Warren is averaging 15 ppg (11^th in the conference), has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.5-1 and is shooting right at 50 percent from the field, 37 percent from three-point range. He’s had five games over 20 points, two of them 30+. He really hasn’t played a bad game. He’s also the only freshman in the Top 20 scorers in the conference and should be a no-brainer lock for Freshman of the Year in the Big 12.

Austin Johnson. The guy Kelvin once called “gummy foot” because of “the worst sprained ankle” he ever saw, AJ’s having his finest season as a Sooner. For the first three years, a lot of people thought this kid was a bust. Sure, he was an angular, good on-the-ball defender who could block shots and use his quicks to pick steals, but his offensive game was … offensive. The Amarillo Palo Duro all-stater has really turned it on this season, though. It’s probably easy to say that the reason he’s starting to look like the All-Big 12 PG is because of the attention focused inside on Blake, but that would be taking away from AJ’s game. His statistical averages this year are the highest of his career, across the board, and he’s leading the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.92). He was named Big 12 Player of the Week when, over a three-game stretch against Texas, Texas A&M and Nebraska, he went for 49 points and 16 assists with 7 threes, some of those from at least 25 feet. Where has he been the last three years? I posit that it’s more a product of that nasty ankle injury than anything, but you could argue that it’s none other than the former Duke PG, Capel, who has turned AJ into a bonafide winner.

Juan Pattillo. Other than the Americanized pronounciation of Pa-TILL-oh, this kid has few flaws. His story of wanting to redshirt the first half of the season is talked about so much on broadcasts that it’s the new Juan Pa-TILL-oh Drinking Game. Whatever his reason, we’re all glad he decided to lace ‘em up and play this year. Capel has to be giddy about being able to bring this JUCO off the bench when Crocker starts puking his expected turnovers all over the court. It’s long been known that this team’s Achilles heel is its bench. Pattillo somewhat neutralizes that argument. This guy is Jamal Mashburn on a trampoline. Since beginning to play significant minutes five games ago against Baylor, the 6’6” Pattillo has averaged 9.2 points, 3.2 rebounds and two blocks per game while playing just an average of 19.2 minutes. He’s a long, very athletic, high energy player who knows where to be, plays great defense and you can feel the team’s energy ratchet up when he enters the game.

The bench

Other than Pattillo, OU has had some flashes of good reserve play, but it has been sporadic.

Cade Davis can rain threes with his eyelashes, but he’s a streaky shooter who could hit five threes in a half, then go 0-for a week.

Ryan Wright has been serviceable, but just hasn’t gotten enough minutes for me to get a good read on him. Capel has a fantastic frontcourt rotation of Blake, Taylor and Pattillo right now, which has kept Wright’s minutes down. If OU wants to go deep into March, though, it’s going to need Wright to spell one of these guys at crucial times.

Like Wright, Orlando Allen is another big space-eater that might need to step it up at a pivotal time later on this season. Capel likes this kid, so I guess I do, too.

Omar Leary has shown flashes, but I’d really like to see a point guard that makes better decisions than this guy. He’s a good deep shooter when left open.

Ray Willis’ indefinite suspension for DUI is a blow to OU’s depth, but Pattillo has taken his unused milky minutes anyway and unless that smart-aleck AT&T kid’s mom turned her back at the yard sale, he wasn’t ever going to get them back.

Coaching

As I said above, Capel has really surprised me with how well he’s done so early in his Sooner career. I think we all knew early that he was a great recruiter, but it looks like he’s a pretty damned good Xs and Os guy, too. Capel inherited a team from Kelvin Sampson that lost its entire recruiting class and, two years later, it’s playing its way into a #1 tournament seed. It’s also important to emphasize how hard it is to manage a team with a bonafide superstar on it. This has probably been Capel’s best work. Capel has made this team into an actual team, instead of just four guys surrounding Superman. It will be no surprise at all when he gets some national Coach of the Year love. The only worry we will have with this guy is actually keeping him in Norman. I’ll start worrying about that in April, though.

Where we are

OU’s off to its best start (23-1) in school history. It has a legitimate shot at running the table in conference, which was a laughable thought just two years ago. Since I went to school in Missouri as a kid, I still have a little bit of show-me and OU still has yet to prove anything. All of this will be for naught if OU gets bounced out of the tournament by North Carolina A&T on the first weekend of the tournament. We have seen some things of concern, namely lack of focus at times that leads to defensive lapses. Also, the Big 12 is down overall this season and might be giving us fans a false sense of security that we’re actually better than we think we are because we’re comparing ourselves to a lot of mediocrity.

Don’t bet your nearly-foreclosed mortgage on those negatives, though. This team has already faced some adversity both at home, on the road and on neutral courts and with the exception of the Bay of Pigs, they’ve answered every challenge so far.

Bottom line, we’ll go as far as Blake can carry us. We’re not a Final Four team without all of the requisite parts on the court, but we’re dead in the water without Blake. This is the legitimate #2 team in the country and could end up being very special. I know it hasn’t happened very often in school history, but don’t be surprised to see Blake finish his college career in the Motor City.