Month: March 2022

Total nonsense just like year when OU did get an invite to the Big Dance. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was a reasonable chance OU and a couple of other schools could possibly get hosed by a couple of undeserving Big Ten teams like Michigan and Rutgers.

It’s not like this is a rant because I feel like Texas A&M, Dayton, and maybe SMU were deserving as well. I’m not going to rant on Wyoming because they’re not a chosen Golden Child from the Big Ten.

Last year of course, the Big Ten had two number one seeds and two number two seeds.

Michigan is a total piece of junk. Period. I wouldn’t even have that team as a regional No. 1 seed in the NIT. Rutgers has a more defensible position, but I don’t think they win the NIT either.

OU had the third toughest schedule, tied for first with five Top 15 wins, and a net NCAA.net ranking of 40.

What point does it make for Joe C and Porter to schedule tough non-conference games? What I would do if were Coach Moser next season is scale the non-conference back and play about eleven mid majors and pad my record. But play the Arkansas game in Tulsa for sure. That was a lit atmosphere.

There was obviously no reward for playing one of the toughest schedules in DI ball this season.

Texas A&M? Why did they even bother winning their way to the SEC Championship game? Total bullshit. They ran Auburn and Arkansas off the court and missed the field as well.

It is what it is. I’m over it and I very much hope the OU players sleep on what happened today and go out and win the NIT Championship in New York City.

OU is going to be good next year. EJ, Jalen, and the Grove Brothers will anchor the frontline. Moj can come back if he chooses to do so. The three freshmen guards should all be better next season. Plus, Coach Porter had a great fall early season signing period when he signed three players who all rank in the ESPN Top 100 and can play any of the guard or wing positions.

I would think Porter will be looking to add two more bigs from the portal and the Sooners should be good.

I would take this opportunity as a building block to prepare for next season.

In 1982 in Billy Tubbs’ second season in Norman his team made the semis at Madison Square Garden and it launched the Sooners into a decade of historical excellence on the hardwood.

Sooner Nation needs to be over this by tomorrow morning and dedicated to winning the NIT in historical Madison Square Garden.

BOOMER!

When was the last time a tea-sipper Big Ten team actually won a men’s basketball national championship?

It’s a while back.

In 2000 is the answer when Tommy Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans won the trophy. Yet all these Big Ten teams are continually asked to the Big Dance.

Should OU make the NCAA Tournament field later today?

They should, but there’s probably more teams than ever vying for those last four spots into the tournament.

My last four teams in are Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Indiana.

We’ll have to wait and see though when the Committee shows America the field later today.

In reality, Oklahoma right now as of this writing is probably the fourth best team in the Big 12. Both Iowa State and Texas have finished their seasons on fumes and in the old days the way a team finished meant something. Currently, with the ‘totality of schedule’ doctrine…it’s hard to know exactly what the Committee is going to do later today.

As someone who watched all thirty-three games OU played this season…I have the Sooners in as a No. 11 seed in the West.

OU per the metrics played one of the three toughest schedules in DI basketball this season. By my estimation…I have the Big 12 and SEC as my top two conferences in the land this season.

Of OU’s thirty-three games played this season there were only two games the Sooners didn’t have a chance to win this season in the last eight minutes of their games played.

Those two games being the two games on the road in Ames and Lubbock following the loss of their best player for the season in EJ Harkless.

These two games were clearly outlier games for this OU team this season in every sense of the word.

Quite frankly, I don’t think Porter Moser and his staff knew exactly how they were going to bridge the loss of EJ Harkless.

But as a group after the dust of those two losses settled…what the Sooners did was shorten their bench of all things while increasing the roles of Marvin Johnson, Jacob Grove, and Ethan Chargois.

Then what Porter Moser did was shorten the leashes of his three freshmen guards off the bench in Bijuan Cortez, CJ Noland, and Alston Mason. Of those three players…only CJ Noland saw the floor in Kansas City this week. I’m sure this was done to basically shore up the defensive quality of OU’s overall minutes.

OU went only eight deep starting at Kansas State and at the Big 12 Tournament this week. What Porter Moser did was what coaches do all the time at this part of the season…he put his season in the hands of his best eight two-way players. If you can’t defend on an iso…you don’t see the floor.

And if the Sooners make the NCAA Tournament…I’d look for much of the same.

You could see Coach Moser’s trust in both Jordan Goldwire and Moj Gibson grow, while at the same time having a belief in what Jacob Grove, Marvin Johnson, and Ethan could provide in expanded roles.

I thought Marvin Johnson the transfer from Eastern Illinois was the key though. He gave the Sooners a boost with his defensive versatility and penchant for making big plays.

Should OU make the field though?

If playing a tough quality non-conference schedule, plus playing in the toughest grind of a conference, plus playing a then No. 1 ranked Auburn in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge on the road means anything…the answer is yes.

BTW…OU lost Marvin Johnson in the first half at Auburn to a lower leg injury which really hurt the Sooner’s depth that day as the Sooners ran out of gas with eight minutes left in the game.

If OU doesn’t make the field…I’ll deal with it and so will the Sooners.

These guys have my utmost respect. They never relented. They never surrendered. They never gave up.

And for me…that’s the future of OU basketball looking forward with Porter Moser. The guy can flat-out coach and his players believe in him.

What a great game! I feel like I played in it as I’m worn out this morning from that tumultuous second half of basketball.

I ended up with some of my friends in Gracemont, Oklahoma of all places to watch the game at the Halftime Sports Bar. Great place to eat fried chicken and okra pretty much like Eichens.

The place was packed and they unfortunately had a one-man music act who literally played through both the TCU-Kansas and OU-Tech games. His stamina was amazing. This guy was oblivious to the importance of the OU game.

A couple of my friends bailed out at halftime to find a bar without this guy playing music. But I stayed because I figured at some point out of complete human fatigue he would stop playing and possibly pass out.

I mean this guy thought he was Peter Frampton up there. Sigh.

I had on my OU basketball cap and went up to him and said, “Listen, if I tip you fifty bucks right now would you stop playing for the second half?”

This guy had on some sort of O-State shirt on it with Mike Gundy’s face on it and says, ” You’re not enjoying the music?”

I said, “The music itself is fine. I get it…you like those three same Peter Frampton songs. It’s just that you haven’t stopped playing those three songs for three hours straight? Could we have a break? This is a big game.”

I can’t even describe the look he gave me as he struck into another Peter Frampton song. It wasn’t a good look, I’m pretty sure of that. But he didn’t have me banned from the bar. I’ll give him that much.

I go out to my car and get my radio head-phones on to drown this guy out and watch the second half of the game there at the Halftime Sports Bar in Gracemont, Oklahoma.

I’ve almost taken a page here and I haven’t even gotten to the game itself.

So…what I think I’ll do is break here and comeback and recap this great game later today as I contemplate all of my thoughts on OU’s gutty performance…which in my book has them in the NCAA Tournament field.

So much emotional irony for me last night having a guy wearing a Mike Gundy Mullet King shirt playing the same three Peter Frampton songs over and over while drowning out the wonderful broadcast with Fran Fraschilla’s breakdown on the broadcast.

I’ll recap the game latter because it’s the right thing to do given how hard OU played last night. I’m proud of them.

BOOMER!

Try this sometime for three straight hours and see what it does to you?

I dare you.

Great postgame presser. It was nice to get off the Zoom bullshit and see Coach Moser and his players in person interacting with humans.

I love what Porter Moser brings to the table. Even during the presser… he’s coaching his guys up.

I agree pretty much with what he’s saying, OU should be in the tournament given the schedule they’ve played and the fact this was a team which starting the season didn’t really have a two-way point guard.

When Porter Moser took the OU job after Lon Kruger’s retirement, he immediately lost two guards from the roster who would have made this team a pre-season top twenty team. Those being point guard Devion Harmon and hybrid guard Alondes Williams. Plus, Austin Reaves now plays for the LA Lakers.

Devion transferred to Oregon to play for Dana Altman who for a time was the favorite to get the OU job, while Alondes felt he needed a fresh start and transferred to Wake Forest where he had a breakout season.

So basically…this team had to evolve around Jordan Goldwire the defensive specialist from Duke and the true freshman Bijuan Cortez as far as the point guard position. It’s been a deliberate work in progress which will still need to get better for the Sooners to get past Texas Tech tonight in the Big 12 semis.

Bijuan, a true freshman who played his high school ball at 4A Kingfisher, didn’t see the floor against Baylor. It was basically Jordan Goldwire and Moj Gibson playing the point for the Sooners against the defending national champion Baylor Bears.

Moj and Jordan have turned themselves into real two-way hybrid guards game by game this season. They need to take their games even higher these next two games in Kansas City for the Sooners to be holding the trophy and chanting SEC, SEC!.

Given how much of that bullshit they’ve had to hear in places like Stillwater, Lubbock, and Lawrence this Big 12 hoops season…I think it would be a cool way to walk off the stage.

OU now has the Texas Tech Red-Raiders with coach Mark Adams and the nation’s best defensive group in front of them tonight in the Big 12 semi-finals.

I’ve had Texas Tech as my third line NCAA Tournament Cinderella for quite some time and I had Coach Adams as my Big 12 Coach of the Year.

Texas Tech plays ten guys. They’re balanced with six different players scoring around ten points a game. Tech plays three different guys at the point at various times during a game and you actually could see any of the three assuming the point at any time.

The Red Raiders are nothing glorious offensively. They work hard and hit the offensive boards with a vengeance. They try to turn you over and get out in transition. They kind of remind me of some of those Nolan Richardson teams at Arkansas playing Forty Minutes of Hell.

OU beat Tech by fifteen in Norman, then got bombed in Lubbock as they were trying to find their way without EJ Harkless.

I think that bridge has been crossed with the way Jacob Grove, Marvin Johnson, and Ethan Chagrois have evolved of late.

Obviously…for me tonight it’s three things for the Sooners, 1 take care of the damn ball and keep the turnovers below 11-13, 2 keep owning the defensive boards as they have of late, and 3 get Tanner Grove out of the gate early shooting the ball.

If OU does those three things, I think they have a chance to play in the Big 12 Finals on Saturday… and maybe even troll Bob Bowlsby a little with an SEC chant.

Let’s go, boys. It’s the goal achieving portion of the season. What happened last night is just that…last night. This is when you elevate your game as a group every game if you want to continue playing consequential basketball games.

Great win. But I’m not overjoyed because this team is still capable of playing much better in regards to TAKING CARE OF THE BASKETBALL.

If this OU teams takes care of the basketball for 40 minutes they can beat anybody.

So–I’m not like celebrating anything just yet, even though I would think this firmly puts OU in the NCAA Tournament.

I’ll recap tomorrow because I want to watch the Texas Tech-Iowa State quarterfinal.

I’m extremely proud of these guys, but if I’m Coach Moser I’m preaching take care of the basketball and you guys can do anything.!

BOOMER!

Another ugly loss where there wasn’t much defense or resistance by the Thunder. Very tough to watch this complete humiliation of the players out there having to ‘perform’ at this level. I won’t call it human sex trafficking any longer. I don’t want the prudish moderator from the Daily Thunder to go off on another moral guardian-laced lecture of my word usage.

Shai was horrible last night. It didn’t even really look like he cared. Why should he?

Rookie Aaron Wiggins from Maryland had a nice game. I’m bullish on Aaron. I think he could evolve into a solid two-way player for the Thunder or someone else in the league.

There’s some nice young promising players on the roster, but I mean at some point you need to put a legitimate NBA roster together and see what you have when you’re actually trying to win games and make the playoffs. some team building and chemistry need to occur. These pretend games are just that…they’re pretend fantasy games.

I’ll go out on a limb for you people who think the Thunder are going to win an NBA Championship if they tank from now till the end of time:

“It’s not happening. OKC is not only a small market, but one which is viewed as an inferior small market by elite veteran players in the league. This means the window is so narrow…it would take a perfect storm on steroids for this to occur.”

Off the top of my head…I’m trying to think when a small market teamclast won a championship in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or the NHL.

I don’t consider Kansas City a small market so that wipes out the Chiefs and KC Royals winning championships somewhat recently.

I don’t consider Tampa a small market any longer either so that wipes out the Lightning and Bucs winning rings of late.

Cleveland from my view isn’t a small market.

San Antonio? Do we consider that last championship in 2014 a small market triumph? Maybe.

I’m not writing this to put down small markets because I love living in ether a small or medium market. I hate traffic, all the congestion, the smog, etc.

But enough of this nonsense by Sam Presti and these Thunder people. You’re not winning an NBA championship unless you’ve learned a truckload from the last four years of the Kevin Durant era, and probably not even then as well.

I’m going to finish with how I rank Sam Presti’s roster assets as of this writing. Like I was someone taking over for him and turning all this losing into playoff contention next season.

1 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

2 Josh Giddey

3 Lottery pick this summer, a big who can shoot

4 Lu Dort

5 Tre Mann

6 Aaron Wiggins

7 Poku

8 a solid vet player, a big who can bang and protect the rim

9 Kenrich Williams

10 Darius Bazely

11 Isaiah Roby

12 Ty Jerome

13 Jerome Robinson-Earl

14 Mike Muscala /player coach, limited minutes

15 Theo Maledon

I think the framework is there to have a nice team in Oklahoma City which the fans can be proud of. But this nonsense the Thunder are the Green Bay Packers of the NBA is just that…nonsense. Come to terms with your realistic prism of sustainability. Strive for that which is attainable.

El Prez

Everything you write about the tank and Sam Presti is beyond prescient. I’ve highlighted a paragraph below for you to feature on your iconic blog if you think it worthy. I must say…going from posting on the extremely weak Daily Thunder to your blog is like going from the Edmond Sun-Times to Newsweek in the flash of an eye.

I keep pinching myself thinking is this really happening to me?

I hope my brief ‘graph on the Thunder’s tank worthy of your publication.

Featured paragraph:

“I’m confident the tank will go well. The scratch ticket lottery? Not so much. But, God has a plan.”

405Baller

Mercifully, the Oklahoma City Thunder at 20-45 with 17 games remaining only have one more month of tanking in front of them this NBA season.

I had the Thunder at 22-60 when the season began…so I’m alive on that bet.

If the Thunder with a league high cap space amount and plentiful young prospects galore can’t begin playing legitimate games again…then the NBA model in place in Oklahoma is not one which is sustainable.

Don’t confuse what I’m writing on my blog, I think Sam Presti is a smart general manager. What I’m saying is if the Thunder can’t pivot after this summer’s draft, then serious consideration should be given to moving the team back to Seattle.

I think if you examine all thirty current NBA markets in the league, it would be fair to say Oklahoma City, is the most cultural outlier in a league which is made up mostly of cities which are culturally blue and more tolerant towards issues of race.

You might have a point in listing Utah, Houston, and Dallas as other outlier cities, but Houston and Dallas are both legitimate major league cities. Utah and Oklahoma City are what I would describe as somewhat a cultural fit with each other, but not the league as a whole.

Regardless of who the Thunder draft this summer, they should have a team which next season at the least competes for a playoff spot at the bottom of the playoff rung.

I’ve been amazed the Thunder fans who’ve shown up this season are actually as positive as they’ve been given the product on the floor the past two seasons.

To me…it’s very simple, be straight up with the fanbase and tell them the model in Oklahoma City isn’t sustainable and move the team to a market which has a broader margin for attracting NBA talent. Or start playing basketball seasons where the intent is to win games versus losing games with the hope Kevin Durant II falls your way again.

But that’s not really sustainability, that’s luck.

That’s Portland taking Greg Oden as well.

I actually watched the first half of the Thunder blowout loss to the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks. The Gonzaga-St. Mary’s game started just as the Bucks had dropped 76 first half points on OKC’s much vaunted defense per Little Nick Gallo. So it all worked out just right for me as a passionate hoops fan.

I’m glad I didn’t go to the game because I might have verbally taunted some of the Thunder fans. I’m better than that. No matter how bad it gets… I’m not wearing a brown sack or verbally engaging with any Thunder fans inside of Pay.Com Arena.

It was great watching Giannis, Bobby Portis, Jrue, Khris, and Serge virtually do whatever they wanted offensively anytime they had possession of the ball.

I’ll talk about Gonzaga’s win over St. Mary’s maybe tomorrow night because I don’t think Gonzaga is anything special. In fact…I think Gonzaga would have finished in third place in the Big 12 this season behind both Baylor and Kansas. I think Gonzaga is better than Texas and Texas Tech, but I can’t go any higher than that unless they prove me wrong in the Tournament.

I’ll be interested to see if the Committee gives the Zags a path where they don’t have to play many Big 12, Big 10, or SEC teams to get to the Final Four. OU played the Zags in the second-round last season….and I didn’t think they were anything special then either. In fact, they were extremely fortunate to beat UCLA in the national semis is the way I recall it.

Why do I have the video of Calvin Ridley posted on this Thunder game comment of mine? Because I believe if Calvin Ridley should be suspended by the NFL for integrity of the game issues for betting a few games…then I as a fan of sport, believe Sam Presti and the Thunder should be stripped of a first-round draft pick and fined $10 million dollars for abusing the NBA’s integrity of the game issues by their shameless tank this season.

I think what Sam Presti has done is far more damaging to the NBA as a whole than what Calvin Ridley did by betting few games when he wasn’t even actively playing games for the Falcons.

The Thunder would lose their first-round pick next year and the $10 million dollar fine would be put into a league escrow account to repay the Thunder fans who were stupid enough to purchase NBA tickets this season in Oklahoma City.

What Calvin Ridley did had no mens rea attached. Remember that’s the Latin legal phrase which means purposeful intent to perpetrate a crime or misdeed upon another party..

Conversely, Sam Presti and the Thunder had every intent as far back as this September to perpetrate this season of less than above board tanking.

If Presti had simply said back then, ” We’re tanking like a boatload of whores.” I’d be totally okay with this.

But he didn’t do this. He played games with semantics and used people in the naive Oklahoma City sports media market to assist him in this season of virtual deception.

So…that’s why I have the Calvin Ridley video posted above.

Tell me…who’s done more to harm the integrity of their sport in their market…Calvin Ridley or Sam Presti?

Joe Biden banned all Russian oil sold to the U.S. today as he should have. Time will tell if France and Germany do the same.

From what we’re reading it appears Poland will make 70 Mig-29s available to NATO to help Ukrainian pilots install a ‘No Fly Zone’ over their country.

Putting semantics aside…it would appear to me the U.S. is very close to declaring war on Putin beyond just an economic war. I hope not, but it seems they are being drawn closer and closer to war by Putin.

I still would not do this. I’d just use all the anti-aircraft equipment possible.

Meanwhile the drones at ‘Fox News’ march on with their incessant nonsense on the angry white airwaves of America.

Sad.

Historically, who will look worse, Jane Fonda or Tucker Carlson?

I would think Tucker Carlson…not even close when you examine all the facts in context.