Month: November 2021

It’s time to get going with the OU Sooner Basketball Beat. Porter Moser’s rebuilt Sooners destroyed DII Rogers State in an exhibition by something like 105-55 or close to that. It was an excellent start for Coach Moser’s new group.

The concern was these guys would look awkward playing together. That wasn’t the case. The ball moved. I mean…the ball moved. Touch, touch, touch….swish. 25 assists on the night and impeccable three point shooting from OU’s perimeter players.

You can already see where Coach Moser is going with this group…especially with the guard trio of Jordan Goldwire from Duke and the two guard holderovers from Coach Kruger… those being EJ Harkless and Moj Gibson.

I wrote this earlier on my post in relation to Coach Moser’s Big 12 presser and I’ll write it again now…I think OU’s guard trio of Goldwire, EJ, and Moj Gibson could be one of the best two-way backcourts in the Big 12 this season. That written if you have one of the better backcourts in the ruggd Big 12 that means you have one of the better guard trios in the country.

Jordan Goldwire was the ACC Player of Year last season at Duke who’s offensive game is okay but nothing special right now. Imagine Russell Westbrook back at UCLA when he played defense first and wasn’t a stat sheet ball hogger like he became with the Thunder. That’s Jordan Goldwire….defense first whatever comes offensively comes off transition or an offensive rebound.

EJ Harkless in my mind will be one of the best two way unsung guards in the country this season. He can do it all. His toughness will be a major component of this basketball team’s potential.

Then there’s three point bomber Moj Gibson. It’s obvious from Day 1 on campus that Coach Moser has been building upon Moj’s game on both sides of the ball….especially on defense where he’s going to be a much more energized player who helps get the Sooners out in transition. But I also saw Moj create some off the dribble in the exhibition game…which wasn’t a huge part of his game last season. I’m excited for Moj.

Ethan Chargois the 6’9″ transfer forward from SMU looked the part as well with an outside shot and the ability to create off the dribble. He’ll be a nice balance to center Tanner Groves the senior transfer from Eastern Washington who scored 35 points against the Kansas Jayhawks in the NCAA Tournament.

Forward Jalen Hill also returns from Coach Kruger’s final OU team. Jalen is what I would describe as a very high basketball IQ player who’s one of those types a coach just loves having on his team. Jalen is versatile and will be a player Coach Moser leans on for the intangibles which will make the Sooners a heady basketball team. Dumb teams don’t go far in post season.

Tanner Groves is a senior center who can score inside or outside depending on the flow of the game. Tanner only scored two points in the exhibition because OU made everything it shot from the perimeter. There wasn’t much need to work the ball deep posession to posession.

Jacob Groves is a junior small forward and was in my mind the player of the game on Tuesday night. He’s a player…especially from an perimeter standpoint. He went 6 for 6 shooting threes.

Rik Issanza the sophomore center from Sudan played a little and while he’s still in need of polish…you can see some potential starting to come around in his game.

Coach Moser’s three freshmen guards, CJ Nolan, Alston Mason, and Bijan Cortes all played extensive minutes in the exhibition game. All three looked good

So looking towards next year already..Coach Moser will have six guys returning to go along with three signees and who knows coming in from the transfer portal. I would think Coach Moser is a fairly effective communicator on the portal.

It’s amazing how much Coach Mozer has already gotten done since his arrival in Norman. Coach Moser very much seems to be a high energy guy who knows how to build relationships with his players.

The regular season begins on Tuesday night with Northwestern State from Louisiana visiting Lloyd Noble Arena.

I can’t wait because the Thunder are losing on purpose and in my mind I’ve got the best beat in Oklahoma hoops this season. I feel like a little kid again hoopswise. Like I’ve been given a reprieve from watching the Thunder’s death march.

This was the manner in which the story was originally reported when it broke.

More than 20 college basketball schools were originally implicated in federal documents taken from a sports agency college basketball corruption case, which revealed potential widespread NCAA violations.

Former associate Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State, Chuck Person of Auburn, Emanuel Richards of Arizona, and former USC assistant Tony Bland were each charged in the corruption and fraud scheme.

The sheme involved assistants steering players to certain agents and financial advisors in an alleged pyramid scheme of sorts.

The original list of of 20 schools went…. Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC, Alabama, NC State, Seton Hall, LSU, Maryland, Washington, South Carolina, Louisville, Utah, Xavier, Wichita State, Kansas, Creighton, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Virginia, and Iowa State.

I honestly don’t know where it now stands with these other schools in relation to the NCAA investigation.

I would assume USA Today and The Athletic will be writing a follow up as to what occurred with Oklahoma State this week in relation to the NCAA penalties which were just levied.

I do know though that’s a very impressive list of basketball schools which make O State’s program post Eddie Sutton seem almost anecdotal in comparison. Oklahoma State in the period from which Eddie Sutton retired only made the NCAA Tournament three times.

Once to the second round with Travis Ford. Once to the first round with Brad Underwood who was the coach who had Lamont Evans on staff at O State. And once to the second round this past season with Mike Boynton.

Brad Underwood is now the head coach at Illinois which interestingly enough wasn’t on the list of 20 schools. Illinois was a No. 1 regional seed in last year’s Big Dance and along with Gonzaga was at the top of the overall bracket entering March Madness.

Off the top of my head Mike Boynton’s record at O State is 72-58. O State with Cade Cunningham did for the first time in its history make the finals of the Big 12 Tournament this past spring losing to Texas. O State lost in the second round to Cinderella Oregon State. I believe O State was a No. 5 regional seed.

As someone who’s an avid OU hoops fans…I’ve never been anything but impressed with the manner in which Coach Boynton coached his team and handled the young men in his program.

He did with Cade Cunnigham exactly what Billy Tubbs did with Waymon Tisdale back in the day. That being… Billy Tubbs kick started his program with one elite national-regional recruit. Cade is from Dallas, Waymon was from Tulsa.

I also remember the violations which got Kelvin Sampson in trouble back in the day wouldn’t even be an NCAA violation today. If I were a real scribe like Tramel… I’d be on the phone with Kelvin today and write a story on the O State situation from Kelvin’s prism.

So what the NCAA is going to tell me is that three hundred dollars of cash loaned to a student athlete from this program gave Oklahoma State an unfair competitive advantage. During Mike Boynton’ s tenure… the O State Cowboys have been a middle tier basketball school in the Big 12 and only played in two NCAA Tournament games in Mike Boynton’s four years.

As I wrote on the previous post…O State this season is projected to be a nice team, but was not ranked in the preseason Top 25.

If Oklahoma State was perceived to be cheating…then my take is they weren’t very effective cheaters in comparison to Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina….just to name four. This is where Abe Lemons would come in handy with a cryptic quote.

I would think some interesting followup stories will be coming from USA Today and The Athletic in the next week or so in regards to the Oklahoma State basketball story.

• Note to Barry Tramel, take my advice and write a story from Kelvin’s perspective on the NCAA since Kelvin at Houston is going to be back in the Big 12 in two years. His takes would be interesting and relevant since he was basically banned from college coaching for a period of time for texting.
• Note: Kansas, Auburn, Louisville, and Miami have allegations/investigations pending and currently have not had their fate revealed by the NCAA.

I had honestly forgotton the LaMont Evans situation was still being investigated. I assumed since Kansas had been absolved so had O State and others as well.This just seems wrong on multiple fronts. I’m a Mike Boynton fan and have been since he took over the reigns of the O State program.

Most all of this is wrong for the O State players who did nothing wrong in regards to a rogue assistant coach who was removed five years ago.

Imagine you’re a senior or the parent of a senior and just like that because of the actions of a fired coach who was at this school before this group of players were even in Stillwater… and just like that the goal of playing in this year’s NCAA Tournament and the Big 12 Tournament is taken away from your team or your son’s team.

The emotion from Mike Boynton at this presser was palpable and very much real.

It’s one of the things I love about him as a coach. He’s a players’ coach all the way through. But a tough one who still adheres to old school ways. He goes to war for his players and they reciprocate.

I think most of us who passionately follow Big 12 hoops have O State somewhere between 4th thru 6th in this year’s league. I very much had O State as one of the six or seven Big 12 teams which would be going to the Big Dance.

It’s a team with a trio of guards in Avery Anderson, Rondel Walker, and Issac Likele who should matchup well against any team in the country. Avery Anderson is already being projected as a late first round NBA selection.

But I tell you what.. I expect Mike Boynton to stand with his kids and for them to play their butts off every game this season. To play for themselves and Coach Boynton. O State has its best nonconference schedule I can remember from recent years and the Big 12 in my view is either the best or second best hoops conference in the country.

Two seasons ago Texas Tech with Chris Beard came within a play of defeating Virginia in the NCAA Championship Game. Last season Baylor ran Gonzaga off the court in the NCAA Finals.

The pre-season poll has Kansas at No. 3, Texas with Chris Beard at No. 5, and defending champ Baylor at No. 8. I have O State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and West Virginia all in a second tier of teams who should be fighting to get an NCAA tournament bid. The remaining gyms at Ames, Manhattan, and Fort Worth aren’t easy places for a road team to get a win either.

This genuinely is wrong for the O State players. There’s no way they should be serving someone else’s penalty for something which occurred five years ago.

Two of the three players I mentioned above were actually thinking of entering the NBA draft last season. But like me they thought this Lamont Evans issue was in the past.

I wonder if Duke and Kansas will be sitting this year’s NCAA Tournament.

This is why the NCAA’s jurisdiction should be removed or at the least drastically reduced from college athletics.

The Atlanta Braves who lost their best player Ronald Acuna in July, who languished under the .500 threshold until August… beat the Houston Astros in Houston in Game 6 on Tuesday night by a score of 7-0 to win the franchise its second title and first since 1995.

Braves’ general manager Alex Anthopolous acquired four players at the trade deadline with the belief his team had a chance to catch and pass the NY Mets and Philadelphia Phillies in their divisional race.

Opting not to tank or give up on the season like some in the NBA… the Braves’ GM acquired Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, and Jorge Solero. The four players were a perfect fit for the ailing Braves and a template on how a GM can salvage a season at the trade deadline.

The Braves won 88 games and won their division while the Dodgers and Giants each won 106 games in the regular season. These Braves were genuinely charmed as they didn’t even have to play as a wild card.

Atlanta dispensed of Milwaukee, then the Dodgers, and then won it all in Game 6 with a 7-0 rout of the Houston Astros as Series MVP Jorge Solero led the way with a three run blast which exited Minutemaid Stadium over the left field wall.

A hushed silence overtook the onlookers as Solero’s blast left the stadium and crossed the railroad tracks outside the ballpark. You could see by the reactions of Houston skipper Dusty Baker and Astro fans that the game was over with that third inning knockout punch.

Houston was done. A third round knockout with a punch which will be remembered in baseball history.

What a tragic ending for the Astros as they were attempting to cleanse their legacy for the cheating scandal which diminished their championship in 2017.

I felt sorry for the Astros. It was a sad moment when total redemption escaped them in their run to this World Series and instead found itself parked on the shoulder of the discarded Jorge Solero who with his Series’ three homers and six RBIs was named the Series’ MVP.

Congrats to the Atlanta Braves … you are the champions of the baseball world on November 3rd, 2021.

I’m surprised…. yet I’m not surprised. OU being 7th would have been more balanced though because Michigan does not have a Top 25 win and just lost one of its two rivalry games by blowing a lead to Michigan State.

Cincy at No. 6 doesn’t bother me because they have a better best win than OU with the Notre Dame win.

OU’s best win of the season to date is versus a swooning 4-4 Texas team which will be joining the SEC under the guise of being a current elite football program.

No. 5 Ohio State like Michigan does not have a Top 25 win since Penn State did not make any other polls this week.

I would say if any conference was given preferrential treatment it was the Big 10. As a conference what is the Big 10’s best nonconference win?

I would say probably Penn State’s home win over Auburn back in Week 3. But since that win the Nittany Lions have ‘almost’ tanked deeper than the feeble NBA entity known as the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Oregon at No. 4 doesn’t bother me because they have the best win of any team with a road win over the Buckeyes in Columbus.

Ohio State like Michigan hasn’t done all that much either.

In fact I would say O State, Baylor, and Auburn all have better resumes than Ohio State and Michigan to date. The manner in which Ohio State and Michigan were coddled by the Committee does grate at me though.

Alabama being ranked No. 2 doesn’t bother me as much because to stay in the Final Four they will need to beat Auburn on the road, plus beat Georgia in SEC Championship Game.. Surely the Committee wouldn’t put a two loss ‘Bama in the Playoff. If the Committee puts a two loss Bama in the playoff that might elicit a different reaction from me.

But again…why in the world would two underacheivers this season like Ohio State and Michigan be given preferrential treatment?

It’s vexing for certain. I might send Kirk a terse email. I hope ESPN didn’t meddle in all of this. Answer me this, Kirk…combined what is the best win for Ohio State and Michigan? The answer again is Penn State. Three teams from that conference in the Top 7…are you kidding me?

It was the same mindset in the most recent NCAA Basketball Tournament seeding bracket. Not one Big Ten team advanced to the Final Four. Not one as I recall even though Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State, and Iowa were all given either No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in different regionals. Only Michigan made it to an Elite 8 game. Again…are you kidding me?

It appears to me the Big 10 lobby is every bit or more than that of the SEC given none of their teams have won anything for awhile yet are given this type of treatment.

I had Georgia No. 1 and Michigan State No. 2 so I’m pretty much there with the Committee on those two teams.

O State, Baylor, and Auburn are pretty much where I had them as well. Same with Notre Dame and Wake Forest for the most part.

So…is OU still in the hunt sitting in the No. 8 position?

I would say definitely because OU regardless of the poll needs to win its last three games against Baylor, Iowa State, and O State–then win the Big 12 Championship Game.

If OU runs that gauntlet and stands 13-0 then I would think the Sooners are in the national semifinals.

Maybe this No. 8 ranking will light a fire under the Sooners’ collective football souls with the message…’Play All Sixty Minutes’.

Possibly this message from someone other than Lincoln Riley or Alex Grinch will tell these Sooners how they’ve been nationally perceived to date. The perception is the team is soft with the exception of Caleb Williams coming out of the bullpen to save the Sooners’ season to date.

Here…I’ll help the Sooners decipher the message even deeper… you were just sent a message from the Committee: Your goals are still intact. You might be a good football team. Show us why you should be in the College Football Football Playoff beyond Caleb Williams.

College Football Op-Ed by MJ

The Committee comes out with their first poll tonight. We’ll see how that goes. My poll goes twelve deep showing what we could have if we had a twelve team playoff in place. My poll allows me to have some flexibity, whereas the current system in place maybe six teams are in play every season….with maybe an outlier every now and again with an Auburn or Michigan State or Oregon making the field.

Here’s what I’m going to do moving forward…place Cincy where they belong in the poll in a twelve team concept and then project what my first round would look like if the playoffs started next week-end.

But of course we have a ton of football to be played so all of this is fluid.

But the point being imagine what the first round could look like if we had a twelve team tournament.

If you think Alabama is the second best team then tell them to beat two loss Texas A&M.

My poll:

1 Georgia

2 Michigan State

3 Oklahoma

4 Alabama

5 Oregon

6 Ohio State

7 Cincy

8 Notre Dame

9 Michigan

10 Auburn

11 Oklahoma State

12 Texas A&M

On my bubble;

13 Wake Forest

14 Baylor

15 Houston

Top four teams get a bye into the Elite 8. First round games are played between teams ranked 5 thru 12 with higher ranked team getting home field.

Round One matchups:

# 12 Texas A&M vs. #5 Oregon

#11 Oklahoma State vs. #6 Ohio State

# 10 Auburn vs. #7 Cincy

#9 Michigan vs. #8 Notre Dame

My Game Day will be in College Station this weekend with two hot SEC teams playing what in effect would be an elimination game using my format….Auburn vs. Texas A&M. This should be a great game. Imagine what it would be like if both teams knew twelve teams would make the field.

TCU’s Gary Patterson stepped down this weekend as the head football coach at TCU. With Matt Wells at Texas Tech being fired the week before that makes two Big 12 coaches who won’t finish the season with their teams.

Nationwide that makes nine FBS schools who have their let their coach go or who have made it clear their coach will be gone next season.

This doesn’t shock me though. With the transfer portal and the Name-Image-Likeness stuff now being a part of college football coaching ….. I would think there will be even more coaching vacancies to fill after this season.

I’ve always liked Coach Patterson. Loved his passion on the sidelines and for the most part the way his teams have competed over the years. –

Hope to see more music from Gary Patterson in the coming years and wish him the very best down the road.