Tilting at Windmills

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.