Author: Mike

‘We’ve shut down all of our talented players for like half of the season if you account for giving scrubs minutes that didn’t deserve it.

Projecting that we’re still a tanking team next year because of extreme tanking measures barely working this year seems highly stupid to me.

The coach and team + top 5 pick this year is too good to tank like this again without having disastrous consequences. I can tell you Shai is done with the tank and other players are joining him. You don’t want to bring a rookie into that environment of the GM crapping all over the players. It’s hard enough to get any outside respect when you tank. It ruins your coach’s record and demoralizes the players very quickly. But if you have a base of talented players to continue the tank like this you start to rot from within.

Finish up the job this year. Trade up from the Clipper pick and get another impact player if necessary.’

Respectfully, 405Baller

‘Very nice. Solid work. Pretty much my thoughts, minus perhaps the fact I want to see Mark D coach one legitimate NBA season before I cross that bridge as it appears you have already done. Write something of this length on Chet for me. I think we’re in agreement there, but I’d like your take in more detail. Ask Luke what he thinks…he’s a bright kid who should have his own blog or at the least be featured on here as well from time to time.

On a personal note, it’s nice to see you trying to help Justin find himself. There was a time when he was right there only ten yards behind El Prez in the Thunder blogosphere. Kind of like Gundy with Big Game Bob. Now look at him. It’s pathetic. I wonder if he squats to pee when Thunder Girl takes him out for a walk.

I mean, dude…you’re Lady Gaga and Justin, bless his heart, has become Bradley Cooper. Truth hurts.

The truth makes real men strong though. Don’t ever forget that.

I have to go. My cousin Taylor and I are heading down to Norman to talk to Porter before the game. We were both original members of Billy’s Baseline Bums back when it started in 1982. We want to see if Porter wants to get serious about giving Lloyd Noble a home advantage feel like it used to have.

El Prez

Hopefully…we have a great March Madness. But here’s the thing… on the night the bracket came out the NFL stole the show with the news Tom Brady is coming back next season in Tampa.

What a week for the NFL. Tom coming back to Tampa. Aaron staying in Green Bay. Russell Wilson headed to the Denver Broncos. The Bengals signing two offensive linemen to protect Joe Burrow. Amari Cooper headed to the Cleveland Browns.

As far as sports news cycles go this wasn’t even close…the NFL stole the show on what is supposed to be March Madness territory for the next three weeks.

Think about this and just in my fourth paragraph I will mention Matthew Stafford is the dude with the ring right now.

This is why the NFL is so far ahead of any other American sports entity. They know how to market themselves almost twelve months every year.

If I were the NCAA basketball committee and CBS…I’d think seriously about what they can do to get their sport back in the limelight.

Duke a #2 seed are you serious? Iowa State even in the tournament? Texas anything higher than a 9th seed? Virgina Tech only an 11 seed? Texas A&M missing the field? Are you people serious?

I’m totally calm with the OU decision because I at various points questioned their place in the tournament during the season because of their inability to close out close games.

Jim Nance and Chuck…do us all a favor. Tell the NCAA to reduce the number of Big Ten people in the mix and help restore men’s college basketball get back to where it once stood in the American sports calendar.

So with OU not making the field…where is my heart in this NCAA Tournament? It’s in two, maybe three places. One place is with Mark Adams and his defensive minded Texas Tech Red Raiders, the other place is with the sharp shooting Virgina Tech Hokies who kind of remind me a little of Mick Cronin’s UCLA Bruins last spring when they had to play their way into the tournament. And then third, ‘maybe’…with my wife’s Auburn Tigers and Coach Bruce Pearl.

Tom Brady.. here’s the thing, bud…glad you’re back, but right now Matthew Stafford is the residing GOAT for at least until the next Super Bowl.

We lost a great one this week-end in actor William Hurt. Hurt turned himself into one of our best actors with a subtle guile which endeared me to some of his films.

My favorite film of his was Broadcast News where he played the network news anchor who rode the Holly Hunter character’s coattails to the top of the broadcast news industry. Pretty much like me at the Daily Thunder moving those people to a status they genuinely never really deserved. If you doubt me…read their current content.

Then I would rank Body Heat as my second favorite William Hurt movie because of the incredible performances by Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Richard Crenna. What an ending…what a movie!

Then my third favorite movie of Bill Hurt would be Gorky Park where Hurt as a clumsy Moscow detective matched wits with the arrogant American capitalist played by Lee Marvin.

I came across this interview last night and would like to share it because to me the interview itself magnifies the brilliance of William Hurt as an actor.

William Hurt, you will be missed.

Bravo, sir.

I’ll get started with my March Madness/NIT coverage tomorrow and I’m at this point going to assign the last fifteen Thunder games over to my intern 405Baller by way of the 405Baller Thunder Journal for the remainder of this pathetic Thunder basketball season. I might freelance at times with some of my own keen insights per 405Baller. This will free me up to cover both March Madness and the NBA as it should be covered on Oklahoma City’s premier underground basketball blog.

Editor in chief, Mike Jackson

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