Tilting at Windmills

Hello, Sweet 16!

Thanks to its first-ever NCAA tournament win over a Big 10 team, OU will be playing on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament for the first time in six years and just the fourth time in the last 20. A gutsy, deep, sharp-shooting Michigan team threatened to end the Sooners’ run, but some halftime personnel adjustments (or non-adjustments, as it were), timely defense and another dominating performance from the Cyberdyne Systems 101 made sure we would see the crimson and cream stay alive for another week.

What went right

Blake Griffin. Blake freaking Griffin. You can codpunch him. You can bodyslam him like Ken Shamrock in a hardwood-floored octagon. You can concuss him. You can make him play with a boll of cotton jammed up his sinuses and dripping gross, bright red pus and blood down his tender, moist, pursed, expressionless lips. You cannot stop him from completing his mission, though. All you can do is run and pray you don’t run into the next Sarah Connor in the phone book. Blake’s line Saturday: 39 minutes, 33 points on 14-20 shooting from the field, 17 rebounds (8 on the offensive glass), 3 assists, a steal and a block. In two 2009 tournament games, Griffin has 61 points, going 25 of 32 from the field, 30 rebounds and 5 assists. If there was any doubt before tonight, let it be put to rest now: Blake Griffin can have relations with my sister anytime he wants.

Guard play. Willie’s back. Hopefully AJ is, too. The backcourt duo combined for 28 points and collectively shot 6-13 from downtown. When those two guys are on, OU is one of the best teams in the country. Blake even gave it up to the two of them after the game, saying a lot of his easy looks were because of the defense having to stretch out to check Willie and AJ. Willie

Crocker’s defense. Before you check to see if your hippie neighbor has slipped some sunshine blotter into your Diet Slice, know that you’re not seeing things: Crocker did some things well. Namely, he took three charges in the game, two on Michigan’s best and most dangerous player, Manny Harris. Now, combined with the times Harris blew right past Crocker and either got fouled as soon as he turned the corner, or got to the basket and drew other players off of their man, maybe we’re talking a push here. The charges Crocker drew came at critical times, though, to stave Wolverine comebacks and give the team a psychological lift.

Coaching. Joe Cash, open up the checkbook for this guy. Capel did two things that showed he’s a pretty damned good Xs and Os guy:

1. Frustrated by the lethargic bench play in the first half, Capel stuck with the starters for nearly the entire second period. It worked. OU reeled off a 12-0 run coming out of the lockerroom and, except for a little blip with about 8 minutes left when Harris started to heat up a bit, they never looked back.
2. Capel admitted after the game that he had to tell Blake to go ahead and fight through the double-teams. Michigan was bringing guys 5-6” shorter and 40-50 pounds lighter to try and guard The Beast. Time and again, instead of looking for cutters and jump shooters like he is wont to do, he simply bulled his way through the weeds and finished off the play. Look, you really shouldn’t have to do much coaching when you have a player of Blake’s caliber, but give Capel credit for still working to make him a better player and, maybe even moreso, credit Griffin for listening and following through.

What went wrong

Failing to take advantage of opportunities in the first half. With Michigan’s Harris (foul trouble) and Sims (canaries circling around his head) out for a lot of the opening 20 minutes, OU should have taken advantage. Instead, they (understandably, at first) backed off of Wolverine bench and role players, allowing them to hit threes and gather critical offensive rebounds to lengthen offensive possessions. Anthony Wright, a 2 ppg scorer who had only hit 13 threes the entire year, nailed four of them in the first half. His deep shooting probably wasn’t in the scouting report, but after watching him nail two in a row, you must get up on that guy and deny him the ball. In no way should it have been a one-point game at halftime.

Crocker’s defense. See above. As an aside, I’m serious: think about what I’m saying next time you see Crocker with the ball and watch him not go to his left. Not only will he not do it, but I honestly don’t think he can. He’s a Division I basketball player in a major conference that cannot dribble with his off hand. That just blows me away.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who can't turn left.

The bench. I don’t know why O’Leary thinks it’s a better idea to shoot the ball rather than dump it into Blake when there’s an obvious mismatch (which was pretty much with anybody who tried to body him up). Pattillo played like he had food poisoning. The reserve Sooners scored one more point than I did, and that was on a Cade Davis free throw. The bench was a combined 0-3 from the field, had two rebounds and three assists. Obviously, we can’t have the starting five all playing 35 minutes or more. AJ played all 40 minutes, Blake was in for 39 and Taylor for 38. Good thing they have a week off.

So now we sit and wait to see who’s going to join the Sooners in Memphis: Teddy Pendergrass and Arizona State or the Jonny Flynn-led Cuse. Honestly, I’m hoping ASU does us a favor and takes out the big Orange, but really at this point, should it matter?

Sweet 16, baby.

Since I’m running so late with the Baylor wrap-up from last week, I thought I’d just fold it into the Tech one. If you watched the Tech game, you realize that the breakdown on that one’s going to be pretty easy.

So, let’s start with Baylor in Waco. I had been there two weeks earlier for the Lady Sooners’ game and the general atmosphere was markedly different. Two weeks ago, traffic was backed up before the game almost to I-35 (a mile and a half, or so). Afterwards, we had enough time to listen to the entire Zeppelin III album before getting out of the damned parking lot. I didn’t see many empty seats at all in the arena and two of them were occupied by Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush and a shit ton of Secret Service agents. Let’s just say it was a friendly audience for the ex-prez and my first thought was I’m not in South Austin anymore.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. The arena looked maybe half full, and the Golden Tit only seats about 10K. We moved from our rafters seats down to about 25 rows up on the 50. There was a pretty vocal Sooner contingent there, too. It felt like an OU at Baylor football game.

Our original seats were in the areola.

The summary

Baylor came out in a 2-3 zone and made OU work everytime they tried to get the ball into Blake. It worked for nearly the entire half. It wasn’t until a couple of easy dunks by Blake and Pattillo in the last minute of the half that OU started pulling away a little.

That little zone they ran will work as long as OU isn’t shooting well and, to Baylor’s benefit, that’s exactly what happened in the first 18 minutes of the game. They also were able to put a couple of big bodies on Blake down low and did a nice job of quickly double-teaming whenever he got the ball down, then cutting off passing angles.

Capel must have seen something in that first half, though, and Scott Drew helped him out by losing his mind and having his team open the second half in a man-to-man. OU’s first time down with the ball, they ran a simple, well-executed back pick by Willie for Blake who rolled from the high post into an unbelievably open area in front of the basket. Baylor’s inability to recognize the switch meant that when AJ dribbled out to the right elbow, all he had to do was zip a bounce pass inside to Blake for a dunk.

The game was within three points midway through the second half as OU went without a FG for 7 minutes and Baylor went on an 8-2 run. Then something lovely and beautiful happened: OU squashed the run. Beautiful because we’re not used to seeing that under Sampson. Capel called a timeout to put a tourniquet on OU’s offense and the Sooners promptly came out of the timeout and pushed the lead back up to 11 in a hurry. Sampson would have obviously called the timeout, too, but would likely have had them ratchet up their defense and hope to win by those same three points.

AJ sent the lapsed Baptists home shortly thereafter with maybe the highlight of the year for the Sooners, and with Blake throwing down thunder dunks every night, that’s saying something. With the clock running down and the ball getting thrown around, Blake zipped a pass out to the top of the key to AJ who caught it in midair and, without landing and setting his feet, drained a 30-foot three-pointer. You could hear howling from the Sooner section and the pitter-patter of “screw you guys, I’m goin’ home” in the stairwells.

What went well

Oh no you di'in't!

What went wrong

Rebounding. OU was outrebounded for just the fourth time this year (USC, Texas, A&M), but you would think that a team with the nation’s leading glass cleaner would never get out-boarded. The Sooners only had 28 rebounds the entire game, 20 of those from Blake and Pattillo. Better teams will take better advantage of that down the road (see: Missouri).

What’s next

Tech … here we go.

The summary

The game was over as soon as Pat Knight decided to throw a limp-wristed piece of Euro trash at Blake with no help of a double team. Knight admitted after the game that the plan was to just let Blake get his and shut everybody else down. Good call. Blake promptly went out and became only the third Sooner (Tisdale and Adams, holla) to ever notch a 40-20 game, and he only played 31 minutes.

Other milestones Blake achieved thanks to the Sand Aggies “Death in the Afternoon” defense:

In admitting he made a mistake by single-covering Blake (then letting Cade get happy-go-jacky from downtown), Knight offered this superlative about Blake:

“Have you guys ever seen the movie, ‘The Terminator?’ That’s what that kid is like,” Knight said. “That kid has no facial expressions. He just plays and it’s like every kid out there on him is like Sarah Connor, and he’s just going to take his time and kill him”

Willie and Cade played very well, too, giving OU the lethal inside-outside punch that could get them to Detroit.

What went well

This guy …

I can haz Naismith?

And this guy …

THIS IS SOOOONA!

Cade Davis. He was unconscious on Saturday, raining five from downtown (three of them in a :50 second first half span) after not making one for 10 days. Cade gave OU a big lift off the bench and it’s nice to see somebody else besides Juan be able to provide some quality depth.

What went wrong

What’s next

The Sooners get a week off to rest and heal up a little. Blake’s battling a touch of bursitis in his elbow and AJ’s battling “a number of ailments.” OU goes to Austin next weekend for an 8 p.m. tip at the HumDrum. I’m so frickin there.

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.