This early February weather is just lit so far in Oklahoma. What a day it would be to pretend we could drive down Ventura Highway with the top down. Being as I’m a Cali-Okie …this will have to do for today.
Get outside today and enjoy the incredible weather leading into Super Bowl Sunday. It’s supposed to be cold on Sunday in Oklahoma.
Baylor at Texas tonight on ESPN Super Big 12 Showdown Night.
Cade Cunningham highlights and game winner vs Arkansas – YouTube
I looked at the schedule wrong. O State plays at TCU tomorrow night instead of playing doormat Iowa State…which is a significant difference.
TCU while being the No. 8 seed in the Big 12 currently is a nice team coached by Jaime Dixon and are still actually on the bubble for an NCAA berth if they can pull some wins together coming down the stretch of the Big 12 season.
Texas high school basketball is awesome. Just look at the AP Poll this week with Baylor, Houston, Texas, and Texas Tech all ranked in the top thirteen teams in the country. Texas high school basketball is becomong what Texas high school football has been for all of my life.
O State didn’t quite crack the AP Top 25 Poll yesterday, but with a good win at TCU tonight this can be rectified given the Cowboys host Texas on Saturday in what should give Mike Boynton’s club an opportunity to make a move in the poll.
O State has a good team with a great deal of overall team quickness. Fans in this state will get a special double dose of Bedlam because of Covid resheduling as the Bedlam games will be played on March 25th and March 27th… the first in Stillwater, then the second game in Norman. That’s going to be some intense basketball played with tournament-like pressure. I think this will be good for both teams in preparing them for March Madness.
This will be good for Thunder fans as well given where the Thunder will be record wise in late March. Truth is…the Thunder are the third tier storyline in Oklahoma hoops-wise this season. These games will give Thunder fans the memory of what relevant basketball games look like.
Cade finally got back on the floor after missing several games due to Covid protocol. In Saturday’s big win over Arkansas in the Big 12-SEC Challenge it took Cade a half literally to get his legs back under him, but once he did he came up clutch for O State down the stretch run making a sequence of big plays which propelled the Cowboys to 11-4 overall.
That’s that little bit of selfishness Mike Boynton needs to see Cade flash more often. When you’re the big dog, don’t feel like that’s a bad thing. Let it flow.
Look at Cade’s body and then look at the bodies of both OKC Thunder rookies this season…. Little Poku and Theo Maledon. No comparison. They both look malnourished compared to Cade. Cade body-wise is ready to go.
In fact..from that standpoint I’d put Cade ahead of both Shai and Darius Bazely as well. Sam Presti needs to start feeding his players. They looked like little kids compared to all of those muscled Rockets last night. Minus of course…Lu Dort and Kenrich, who by the way is a former TCU Horn Frog.
Plus, Cade is smart, humble, and unfailingly too unselfish. But on Saturday he flexed his alpha a little more down the stretch when his team needed every one of his late game baskets to beat Arkansas.
I’m marking that down in my Cade Cunningham Journal. ‘Cade starting to show alpha a little more.’ But in fairness to Cade…he did that in both of the road wins over Marquette and Wichita State earlier in the season.
Relatively big game for O State tonight if they want to separate from TCU in the BIg 12 standings.
Be sure and watch Rondel Walker when you watch O State as play. This kid has a game and a great set of wheels. He was the best high school player in Oklahoma City last season and is going to make his mark at O State. Just like former John Marshall Bear Joe Atkinson did back in the day.
Know who coached Joe at John Marshall…Blake Griffin’s father Tommy Griffin. Those were the days for John Marshall hoops. 31-0 in 1995 with all five starters getting a scholarship. Didn’t lose a game. Joe was the stud and went to be a good player for Coach Sutton at O State.
If O State can take care of TCU it sets the stage for them to have a breakout game on Saturday hosting Texas. BTW…Texas hosts Baylor tonight in the national spotlight game.
In closing, Sam Presti–start feeding your players and get them in the weight room.
In essence I was playing with house money by wasting my time watching the Thunder lay down in the first half in their 136-106 loss to the fun to watch Houston Rockets.
It worked perfectly for me because the Sooners tipped off at 8:07pm in Lubbock….just as the first half carnage in OKC went to intermission. I got to watch two ranked teams get after each other on every possession of the game. It was oldtime Eddie Sutton..Kelvin Sampson..get after it basketball.
Texas Tech actually won the game 57-52 without their leading scorer Mac McClung making a field goal.
Now think about this coaching wise…OU has a Hall of Famer in Lon Kruger coaching the Sooners who at one time tried his hand in the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks. Texas Tech has Chris Beard who was taught the art of defense by one Bob Knight.
Meanwhile both the Rockets and the Thunder are coached by two young guys who’ve never been a head coach before at either a Power 5 or NBA team.
Think about how much more qualified both Lon Kruger and Chris Beard are resume wise than the two young guys coaching the Thunder and Rockets. You could in fact say the top six coaches in the Big 12 are more accomplished than probably two thirds of the current NBA head coaches.
Just an observation.
OU played tough with plenty of grit, but without their best offensive player in Austin Reeves they played uphill all night. But they competed their asses off…so you live with it and move to the next game.
Austin Reeves will be back on Sauturday when the Sooners play feeble Iowa State. So…I think OU will be okay as they climbed all the way to No. 9 in the AP Poll on Monday.
I love Coach Beard..so it’s not like I’m all that down with the loss. I love the way he coaches. Period.
As far as the Thunder. They need to lose because unless you’re a complete Little Nick Gallo drone…the Thunder need a top five pick and a top eighteen or so pick in the NBA draft this summer.
I’ve seen enough of Operation Poku for the time being… speaking of a No. 17 first round pick. Please send him down to the G League where he can work on the trajectory of his shot and work on his body shaping. Enough already. This is worse than watching the Josh Huestis experiment all over again.
The Thunder’s defense for the second staight game was absolutely horrific both on the perimeter and at the rim. If I were Sam Presti instead of wasting another first round pick on a three year project..I’d use a pick on a big who can play defense, run the floor, and give the team some athletic credibility on the defensive end moving forward.
The Rockets have a nice little team. They can shoot the three and they in essence play positionless defense and swith all over the place. As a basketball fan in general … I find this new version of the Rockets very entertaining to watch.
I thought Lu Dort and Kenrich Willams were the two guys who engaged the most defensively. But that’s their individual DNA, not one created by the Thunder’s coaching staff.
I’m not at all bitching about the loss. Keep losing Thunder. You need some help in a significant way heading into camp next September.
The best way to lose is to not guard anybody. Keep it up.
I would say from what I’ve observed this season so far…both OU and O State could make it to the Sweet 16 or maybe the Elite 8 if they stay clear of Covid issues and get a decent draw in the bracket.
Maybe even further if the bracket cards fall right.
Don’t diss on O State. Once Cade Cunningham understands the Big Dance is time for him to put on his Danny Manning shoes—Mike Boynton’s team would not be a team I’d want to play. It’s just fitting that in this year of the Thunder tanking–the basketball gods are giving Oklahoma two good college basketball teams the same season.
Listen to Chris Beard on the interview with Reese Davis and tell me you wouldn’t run thru a wall for him.
“Which wall, Coach?”
(4) Alan Jackson, Jimmy Buffett – It’s Five O’ Clock Somewhere (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Beautiful day in Deer Creek, Oklahoma. I’m tired of winter, but today the skies are blue and the winds are calm. Wish I was on beach right now in Mexico. I’ve come to the conclusion it would be safer being around the drug cartels than living in Oklahoma with the Trump insurrectionists.
Toronto is too cold for me. Who am I kidding with that?
I wonder if Mexico is even letting Americans in right now given what they witnessed on January 6th?
Maybe Alan Jackson will calm my nerves a little bit.
This is a good first day of February song as well. Just to get yourself in the frame of mind for blue skies and better days.
Have a nice day and steer clear of the Trump rebels if you can.
I haven’t seen the AP Mens Poll just yet. I would assume OU is close to cracking the Top 12 while O State will crack the Top 25 for the first time this season. This would put seven Big 12 teams in the Top 25 after the Big 12-SEC Challenge which was played this week-end.
Right now the biggest obstacle I see for both OU and O-State is steering clear of Covid as much as possible as we begin February Big 12 play.
O State plays at TCU on Tuesday night in Fort Worth. OU won there earler this season and O State needs this road win do contunie their upward trend.
For OU—it’s a very tough road assignment in Lubbock versus Chris Beard’s Red Raiders who will be somewhere close to the Top 10 tomorrow I would assume.
OU just completed the best three game stretch in regular season program history with wins over Kansas, Texas, and Alabama.
Yet…it will require another grind it out effort by OU on the defensive side of the ball to extend their current win streak to six games.
Typical Chris Beard team with a blossoming star in wingman Terrance Shannon and some great point guard play by Mac McClung coupled with a defense which plays every possession to the death. That’s the thing in the Big 12….all of the top seven teams play defense to the death and it’s tough to score the ball in this conference unless you’re playing against Kansas State or Iowa State. The jury is still out on TCU.
I have no idea where Austin Reeves and Olandis Williams stand as far as Covid protocol for tomorrow night. But I’m assuming both will be sitting the game out.
As far as the Thunder go—they’re on my second tier game status tomorrow night. I’ll watch when the OU game goes to commericals.
The Thunder host the Houston Rockets in what should be a nice game.
I have no idea what the Thunder are doing. If Sam Presti screws around and doesn’t get a top five pick this season I would desribe that as even much worse than allowing Kevin Durant to walk with nothing coming back in return. But still you want to hope for the glass full with the Thunder pertaining to the draft this summer.
Anyway…Houston is only a game out of the 8th spot and I would assume they’re going to be trying to climb into the top eight in the West at the least.
As far as the NCAA Tournament this season it’s completely wide open. Gonzaga and Baylor in a single elimination tournament are both completely beatable on any tournament night given the right opponent.
Here’s Chris Beard atop on his presser just after his team lost a tough overtime game for the last NCAA Basketball Championship which was played two seasons ago.
As a passionate fan of the game how can you not love what Chris Beard brings to the game for his players.
On most nights I’m pulling for Chris Beard, just not tonight in Lubbock.
My older sister Jan sends me things to read all the time. She actually preceded me at John Marshall in Ms. Elijah’s literature and writing classes… and went on the become her class valedictorian…then at Harvard.
As I wrote on here before…Ms. Eiljah was the best teacher at John Marshall. Bar none. A National Teacher of the Year winner. A stately little red-haired version of Ruth Beta Ginsberg who at one time struck me with my own hardcover version of Dan Jenkins’ bawdy bestselling novel Semi-Tough.
Because of Ms. Elijah… my reading tastes gradually expanded. She threatened to flunk me–which would have prohibited me from playing sports. So given this dire consequence… I started reading Jack London, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain…and others.
At one point she even had me standing in front of the class reading a poem by Carl Sandberg which had nothing to do with the Chicago Cubs. If Amanda Gorman had seen me that day….just saying.
So my sister from time to time sends me books and articles from the NY Times she thinks I would enjoy. She has become my surrogate Ms. Elijah for the remainder of my life.
The above was sent to me by her this past Wednesday on the twenty year anniversary of the Oklahoma State plane crash tragedy. As I wrote on my blog at one time…my son and I had the honor of sitting next to Coach Sutton and his family at a Thunder game back in that first year of all things Thunder in Oklahoma.
Even though I’m an OU fan…I fell in love with Coach Sutton during that first year at Oklahoma State. He transcended Bedlam for me. This may sound corny because I was never one of his players, but I felt he had an impact on me to some degree.
The attached link above was written by Josh Crutchmer who at one time worked on the school paper at O State and later went on to become a copy editor at The Oklahoman before landing a job at the New York Times as a copy editor. After a call to my sports scribe buddy who used to work at The Oklahoman…I even discovered he and Josh worked together at The Oklahoman. Small world.
Above is the essay which Josh wrote which was published this past week in honoring the spirit of those whose lives have never been the same since that fateful day.
I found it to be a beautiful read.
I hope you enjoy the it. I think you might find it worth the time.
What a beautiful Saturday of hoops. We went out to the family ranch in Seminole for a Chicken Kiev party as I slyly took control of the televison room and watched OU beat Alabama in what I would decribe as a potential Sweet 16 or maybe even an Elite 8 type of matchup coming down the road in March Madness.
Maybe this was a harbinger of things to come when Spencer Rattler and the Sooners/Vols beat down the Tide in next season’s college football national championship game. Could be… let’s deal with hoops first though.
I’ll get to Cade’s clutch play in the win over Arkansas on my next Cade Cunningham Journal in the next day or so. Anyone who thinks Cade isn’t the deal should just give it up at this point. He’s leading the toughest conference in America in scoring and he really hasn’t even yet put his foot on the gas pedal yet. You’ll see. Too bad he had to sit last week vs. Baylor. This young man is basketball gold. O State and Mike Holder better get the damn NCAA paper work done so he can be a part of March Madness.
What a gut check win for Lon Kruger’s surging Sooners as they overcame losing leading scorer Austin Reeves and versatile wing Olandis Williams to Covid protocol. Tough situation for the very deep Sooners, but with DeVion Harmon driving the bus the Sooners played inspired gut check ball to make the clutch plays and beat Alabama at home in the Big 12-SEC Challenge.
The rest of the basketball nation is now catching on to what these Sooners are with the additions of EJ Harkless and Moj Gibson. Without the two transfers the Sooners without Reeves and Olandis would have had a zero chance of winning this game. As in zero.
EJ Harkless is not a star per se as a scorer , but what he is…is a winner who stuffs the stat sheet with tough rebounds, getting fifty fifty balls, making the extra pass, defending the other team’s best guard. Things like that.
Elijah is the ultimate team guy who when he wants to can score the ball as well. I kind of like Elijah Harkless if you can’t tell by now.
Moj Gibson is more of streaky three point phenom who when hot can change the flow of a game like Mikey Miller used to do with the Florida Gators before he went on to the NBA and then destroyed the Thunder in the 2012 NBA Finals.
This game was a slugfest with each team throwing haymakers until EJ made a sequence of clutch plays to propel the Sooners to their fifth Staright win…and I’m guessing a bump up in the ;polls to somewhere close to a # 10 or so ranking on Monday.
On a note of humanity…it was great to see Brady Manek finally get it in gear as he had some clutch plays as well which put the Sooners over the hump. Lon Kruger had to have what he got out of Brady today. Period. Helmet sticker for Brady.
Remember this as OU’s season moves forward…they play defense with a bulldog mentality just like Chris Beard’s national runner-up Texas Tech Red Raiders did two seasons ago.
Oddly enough…the Sooners next game is on Monday night in Lubbock against Chris Beard’s nationally ranked Red Raiders.
That’s the thing about the Big 12 this season…it seems every game you’re playing somebody tough minus Iowa State this season.
On to Lubbock, Texas.
Boomer!
A little country music video would be the perfect way to end a perfect basketball Saturday. Have a nice Sunday.
Kevin Durant feat. Green & Harden – Say AHH – Bing video
Kevin didn’t need to play and was listed a load management scratch as ten other Net players scored in double figures. Brooklyn destroyed the Thunder on the boards by a 50-36 margin while the points in the paint allowed stat in the first half was a disaster for the Thunder as well..
It was nice to see James Harden and Jeff Green play together. So the three are all back together minus Russell. From what I saw the Nets should be the favorite to win the Eastern Conference this season. They might want some more interior defense at the trade deadline, but otherwise they’re stacked. THEY CAN SCORE THE BALL.
A shout out to Theo Maledon for scoring 24 points on an 8-9 night from the field and a perfect 6-6 from beyond the arc. He’s going to be a nice player for the Thunder if he ever makes it to second contract here.
There’s no real need to dissect this. This was one of the league’s two most talented teams playing against a developmental team which is probably a three year work in progress in the first stage of being a playoff team possibility in 2023.
You can write some bullshit if you want, but that’s just the reality. I hope the Nets win a ring. Isn’t it odd with all this talk of tanking for for first round picks that James Harden and Jeff Green were both top ten first round picks who were traded away before they ever got beyond their rookie scale contract in Oklahoma City.
Green and Nenad Krystic went to Boston in exchange for Perk and Nate Robinson.
Harden as we well know went to Houston for a one year rental of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, the draft pick which would become Steven Adams and a second round pick which would become Alex Abrines.
So much for lottery picks as far as how the Thunder used them.
But that’s all hindsight and it’s not fair for me to make the comment in a snarky manner.
But the Thunder did get to the 2012 Finals, so there’s that.
How ironic we see Kevin, James, and Jeff all back together in pursuit of a ring while the Thunder are in the throes of at the minimum a three year rebuild if things go right.
I always loved the video above. It all seemed so innocent back then.
Minnie Riperton – Lovin’ You (Live 1975) – YouTube
Gosh…now that I know Brians Williams at MSNBC is on board with me…this opens up an entirely new genre of GOP insurrection make up sex music videos.
What the hell was I thinking? Where was my head….evidently not between the legs of Trump like Lollipop Lindsey Graham, Lyin’ Ted Cruz Little Marco, Extra-Small Devin Nunes, and Had Me At Hello Kevin McCarthy.
I feel liberated by Brian Williams. All this time I thought it was just me struggling with the concept of Trump. Not counting…but if Trump wants to take this to the max extreme he could have a sixsome pee party with this group in the Obama’s favorite Moscow hotel room. Tell me Putin wouldn’t monetize that video.
Man, this is totally sick. Even George Costanza wouldn’t have insurrection makeup sex mood music. But then again…you can’t tell what Trump will do to the hormones of these GOP evangelicals. It must be all that guilt and sexual repression built up over the years.
I know this though, no way in hell would I stand next to any of these guys near an airport urinal. Word.
I need a song now just to cleanse myself from even blogging about these guys. Very sad.
You Had Me at Hello – Jerry Maguire (7/8) Movie CLIP (1996) HD – YouTube
How it is I missed this thought with the Kevin McCarthy makeup sex trip to Mar A Lago is beyond me. It must be I’ve been so consumed with blogging about basketball…I had my head in a cloud of hoops.
This scene is indelibly wrapped in my soul being I’ve watched this movie at least twenty times with my wife. She actually just came into the room right now and showed it to me from the Brian Williams show last night with tears in her eyes. Swear to God.
‘You had me at hello.’
It makes me misty eyed thinking of Trump back to having his way with Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Devin Nunes, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Little Marco, James Lankford, et al.
I mean…comapred to these guys…Jim Jordan appears almost Chruchillesque. I can’t believe I just wrote that, but I did. Bar low.
I don’t even know if I can continue. It’s hard to blog thru the tears.