Month: December 2021

From what I’ve seen from the Thunder this season I would rank this as the most enjoyable game I’ve watched from wire to wire excluding the Russell Westbrook-Frank Vogel games. It was a fun game beteen two pretty much even teams who are at about the same point in their rebuild evolution.

The game had pace, ebb and flow, some great moments by some promising young players and literally a photo finish at the end with a late Toronto game winning tap being correctly waved off.

I thought Little Nick Gallo was actually crying in the post game talk with Shai. It was a fun game.

It was like watching a real basketball game which wasn’t a predetermined loss. And I’m guessing because Shai had eighty guests at this game since he hails from nearby Hamilton that Hinkie-Presti and Coach Tank actually played this game straight up.

If you watched the game close you would have noticed that of the 240 minutes of floor time allotted the Thunder only 13 were what I would describe as ‘developmental’ or ‘tank minutes’. Those 13 minutes came from Poku’s ten minutes and the mysterious three minutes played by Paul Watson.

I mean otherwise, Coach Tank played it pretty much just like I would have.

Shai and Dort played heavy minutes. Giddy was used just about right. Bazely played what I thought was his best game of the season. Kenrich was superb. Muscala actually struggled a bit in his fifteen minutes but hit what turned out to be the game winner. Favors played his backup minutes well. Then Coach Tank sprinkled the rest of the minutes between Jre and Tre Mann. This is how a real coach trying to win would have allotted the 240 minutes of Thunder floor time.

So color me thrilled for this game in Toronto when the Thunder didn’t tank and instead allowed Shai to show his friends and family what the Thunder could potentially be if they were a real basketball team trying to win beyond 22-24 games this basketball season.

I heard someone on Traber’s show today ask if the Thunder should consider trading some of their assets in order to obtain Domas Sabonis from the Pacers?

After I stopped laughing to myself…I listened to Traber’s answer and he got it right. Of course they’re not going to do this. That’s what a real team in a real NBA market would do if they were trying to take a young NBA team to the next level this season and maybe win around 38-41 games this season.

No. Nice thought by the caller. But no…that ain’t happening in Presti World.

The team will continue to lose games with the fervent prayer attached they can lose enough to hit it right with either the kid from Gonzaga or the kid from Duke.

Next up…the LA Laker Show in OKC with Russell Westbrook and Coach Vogel. I’m going. I’ll be there with a Laker T shirt on. The weather is supposed to be balmy in OKC on Friday so it’s the perfect game to root for the Lakers.

I had planned on recapping OU’s heartbreaking 66-62 overtime loss to Butler this morning, but the news broke last night that O State’s defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is moving to take the same position at Ohio State.

I’ll push the OU loss to Butler back a day because Jim Knowles moving to Ohio State is a bigger deal.

I will say this without hesitation from the view of an OU fan, this year’s defense at O State was the best I’ve ever observed…not really even close.

When you examine what this defense did across the statistical board this season—it by far surpasses the O State defense in 2011.

If you take away the Spencer Sanders picks on Saturday in the Big 12 Championship Game in reality O State’s defense allowed seven points. In Bedlam this defense basically held OU scoreless the entire second half minus the two goal line fumbles which were turned into nine points.

I saw this video during Bedlam week, but didn’t play it on my blog. But with the news last night that Coach Knowles is leaving to become a Buckeye this seems like the appropriate time.

He’s an interesting dude. He graduated from Cornell and was actually their head football coach for six years. He was the defensive coordinator at Duke before taking the Oklahoma State job.

People around here thought Mike Gundy lost his mind when he hired a coordinator from Duke to coach in the point happy Big 12, but just last night Jim Knowles was a finalist for the Frank Broyles Award which honors the best coaching job by a coordinator in America.

He’s an interesting quirky dude. The kind of coach most players would embrace and enjoy playing for.

Keep this in mind about O State’s defense this season as we watch people lose their minds about four and five star college football recruits the next two weeks…this Oklahoma State defense didn’t have one four or five star player on it. Not one. The Big 12 Player of the Year Malcolm Rodrigues from O State probably won’t even get drafted by the NFL.

I want OU fans to read this in closing… Jim Knowles leaving Oklahoma State to coach at Ohio State isn’t a betrayal. It’s a coach moving along to take an opportunity he couldn’t pass on at the end of the day.

Jim Knowles got an offer. He thought about it and decided the challenge was something he couldn’t pass up. The guy loves new challenges and I will admit I don’t think Jim Knowles would ever run scared from the SEC if someone from that conference called with the offer of an interesting job.

But still…putting aside the fact Liincoln didn’t want any part of the SEC–I write this because I’m tired of hearing some of my fellow OU fans still whining about Lincoln Riley’s departure.

Some OU fans need to get over it and embrace the fact Joe C made a home run hire and everyone involved should have a happy ending.

Coach Jim Knowles…good luck in Columbus being an Ohio State Buckeye.

Jeff Lebby who coached Matt Corral this season is rumored to be in the mix as the next offensive coordinator. I have no idea on this. With an Oklahoma background and connection to Joe Jon Finley you could envision it possibly.

Joe Brady was fired this week by the Carolina Panthers.

Pitt has had an interesting offense this year. What they’ve done with their offense has been amazing. I wonder who their quarterback/pass game coordinator was? I need to check on that one.

You would think Brent Venables will get this nailed down as soon as possible.

The young man with the Dallas Cowboys who played QB for Boise…Kellen Moore. I wonder where he thinks he’s going with his career.

That’s my short list so far.

It’s hard to figure the Thunder out. Do they want to tank or just do like they did last year and miss out on a top five draft pick?

The Thunder won last night in Detroit after trailing by as many as 18 points. For most of the game it looked the Thunder had a 9th straight loss in the bag…then in the fourth period the Thunder’s coach for some reason went with very heavy minutes with his four best players…Shai, Lu Dort, Kenrich Williams, and Mike Muscala.

The result was a Thunder 42 point fourth period which turned into a 114-103 road win for Oklahoma City.

It was interesting watching Cade Cunningham and Jerami Grant. It’s nice to see how their games are progressing. They both played well until the fourth period when the entire Piston team collapsed. Of course–in the elite circles of tanking teams like Detroit and Oklahoma City you never know what’s tanking and what’s the other team elevating it’s level of play. I have no idea how Vegas even begins to establish point spreads for games like this with two teams tanking shamelessly.

Cade had a great game going until the fourth period then he committed some bad turnovers which helped the Thunder earn its seventh win of the season. For the season the Thunder now stand at 7-16 somewhere floating around the bottom five of the entire NBA.

It’s hard to know what you should and shouldn’t take out of these games because you don’t when the game is an exhibition and when both sides of two tanking teams are actually trying to win… ot lose. Kind of like professional wrestling.

I’m not sure if my intial comparison of the Thunder to human sex traffickers would be the correct comparison when two equally bad tanking teams are trying to decide who’s going to win and who’s going to lose. Maybe in this situation it would like two rival mafia groups fighting for turf by whatever means. I don’t know… I need to think about it some more.

Shai had a nice 30 point, 13 assist game. Lu had a 28 point night. Mike Muscala did some nice things. Giddy here and there did some positive things, but I think even Michael Cage acknowledged the ceiling between Cade’s game and that of Josh Giddy isn’t the same.

And Kenrich had a great game. He’s my favorite Thunder player and he made his return from an ankle injury a good one as he scored 12 points and was game high for both teams at +22.

Kenrich is the one constant for me when I force myself to watch parts of a Thunder game nowadays. He obviously respects and loves the game.

OU hosts Butler on Wednesday… so I’ll be watching the Sooners play the Bulldogs in the Big 12-Big East Challenge while the Thunder stay on the road in the best NBA city in the league….that being Toronto of course.

I would think the two Canadian kids…Shai and Lu have some special type of tour scheduled for the other players.

I’ll do something on Mike’s Travel Blog….Toronto-wise.

Correction…the Sooners host Butler tonight. So that means I’ll have to adopt an NBA team for most of Wednesday night when Kenrich isn’t on the floor.

This is a Thunder game not involving Russell Westbrook and Frank Vogel’s facial expressions that I’ll actually watch.

The two worst teams in the NBA. OKC 6-16, the even more pathetic Detroit Pistons at 4-18.

The two most shameless tankers in the NBA with Sam Hinkie-Presti and his previous protege Troy Weaver now the GM for the Pistons.

Cade Cunningham vs. Josh Giddy

Detroit is a Vegas 3 point home favorite with the over/under at 205.

How does Vegas even set spreads with these two teams?

Think how angry you would have been last week with the Thunder +72 and you didn’t cover. Think about that one.

It was cold and windy today in Oklahoma so I stayed inside and watched both Brent Venables’ introductory speech then his subsequent first presser with the local scribes.

I have no idea who the man above is in the video…but what I’ll say is he could very well be a regular reader on the sly of okcthunderground.com.

This OU fan nailed it as far as Coach Venables. I don’t think he got any of the above from Barry Tramel or John Hoover. Just saying.

If this guy was fifteen years younger I’d want him as my protege intern on here. Spot on. This guy is spot on.

Prescient, sagacious, wordly beyond his years…this OU fan I do not know …. but this man said everything I was thinking following Brent Venables’ heartfelt comments to his players and Sooner Nation on Monday morning.

I almost cried several times during Coach Venables’ talk. This is who the guy is, that being, a human who’s looking for the best in his players and wants his players to grow as men beyond their football experience at OU.

Coach Venables was always a great talker back during his tenure in Norman with Bob Stoops, but he’s even better now due to his ten years with Dabo Swinney. He’s grown as a son, brother, husband, and father. Venables’ age wears him well and this is why I think OU with the exit of Lincoln Riley is in a better postion today than they were eight days ago.

I loved some of the things Venables said. He wants to be a relationalship coach versus a transactional coach. I wish every OU player would watch the Brent Venables life testimony I posted last night.

I loved the part in his presser where someone asked what one thing he had learned from Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops, and Dabo Swinney:

Just a great three part answer…1 from Bill Sndyner he learned to be prepared, 2 from Bob Stoops he learned sometimes you have to gut feel it and for it, and 3 from Dabo Swinney he learned the importance of establishing human relationships with his players. Great answer.

I can’t remember who asked the question, but I thought it was the best question of the day.

It was a great day for Sooner Nation. Truly a great day.

This is Brent Venables personal life testimony. If you want to know Brent Venables beyond the coach…I think you would be well served taking the time to watch the video.

Joe C flew Brent Venables into Norman tonight at the Norman regional airport to announce his new head coach. It was surreal as over five-hundred fans were there to greet Coach Venables.

The official press conference will be on Monday on OU’s campus at 10:30am.

A great loss for certain for Clemson, but in reality this should have been Brent Venables’ job five years ago.

OU has lost several guys off the 2022 recruiting class and so far Spencer Rattler has transferred to UCLA and Jadon Hazlewood has transferred to Arkansas. But the reality with both of those players is that they both greatly underacheived at OU this season and perhaps the change of scenery will be good for both of them. Hope they do well.

OU regained one of their top running back commits today — so I think the manner in which Bob Stoops and Joe C handled this in a week was paramount to the program being poised to be immediately relevant as long as Caleb Williams stays in Norman.

OU gets both O State and Baylor in Norman next season so maybe the Sooners can take care of both and win another Big 12 trophy before heading to the SEC.

I seriously don’t think Joe could have hired any other coach in America who can go into a living room and sell OU better than Brent Venables. He’s an extremely passionate people person who literally has to have a sideline person assigned to him during games to keep him from running onto the field. I love that. His players love that—they feed off it.

If ever the 2nd Rule of Coaching applied to a guy it’s Brent Venables: ‘You coach through your own unique character and personality.’ And what you see with Brent Venables is what you’re going to get.

Brent Venables is the perfect coach with the perfect personality to remove the gloom from a week ago and prepare this program for the move to the SEC.

Truth be told…losing Lincoln Riley who didn’t want any part of the SEC grind to get Brent Venables is a net gain for the program. How in the world could Joe C expect his players to make the SEC transition if his own coach was scared to embrace the challenge?

So in the end I think while it was a tough week in Oklahoma it’s all one big silver lining moving forward for the OU football program.

Joe C got his man.

Our week of football agony in Oklahoma is just about over as Brent Venables is about to be named the new OU head coach. Other good news is OU will face Oregon in the Alamo Bowl while Oklahoma State will play Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

Both nice destinations for the two state teams. I’ve been to both bowls before and I’l probably go to the Alamo Bowl and hit the best piano bar around there on the River Walk. Plus, there’s the historic Menger Hotel within walking distance of the best piano bar I’ve been to. You haven’t lived as a college football fan until you hit the bar at the Menger Hotel with all that Teddy Roosevel history adorning the walls. We hung out there the year OU with Sam Bradford beat Missouri in the Big 12 Championship Game.

We also went to that 2006-07 Boise State Fiesta Bowl and while OU lost in overtime to Boise that was about as much fun as I’ve ever had at a college football game. Everything about the ending of the game was iconic even though OU lost. The hook and ladder, the Statue of Liberty, then the marriage proposal.

Again it’s not the fact Lincoln took the job. I could care less. In fact…it’s a silver lining for OU. It’s just so weak though because he didn’t thank the two guys (Stoops and Joe C) and give the proper props to his own OU players over the years at OU.

It looks like Roy Manning was indeed terminated at OU as their secondary coach. And it appears seven OU position coaches are still on board to stay with the Sooners.

It will probably work for Lincoln in the end if USC can avoid going on probation again. Lincoln becomes the Trojans’ eighth head coach since Pete Carroll left for the NFL, while Brent Venables becomes the third head coach for the Sooners in the last twenty-three years following Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley.

Kind of ironic it looks like this could be the end of both Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll in Seattle as all this seismic change is taking place in Los Angeles. If Pete Carroll were ten years younger… I’d have been all over Joe C pursuing Pete Carroll. I’m a huge Pete Carroll fan. I’ve always thought he was lit as a coach. Pete C put the worst ass whipping on an OU team I’ve ever observed with the 55-19 win the Orange Bowl national championship game.

Here’s a great trivia question…name the three head football coaches who have won a college national championship and a Super Bowl as a head coach?

Answer: Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, and Pete Carroll.

I think I might honor Pete Carroll on my blog later tonight.

Here’s the Menger Hotel virtual tour. An absolute must if you attend the Alamo Bowl. This will be an advance entry for my Mike’s Travel Blog December entry though I’ll probably do one from Denver over Christmas as well.

One other thing…I just saw OU wide receiver Jadon Haselwood who eneterd the transfer portal just selected Arkansas as his destination. I hate to see him go because my wife was a friend of his family in Georgia, but I’m proud of Jadon for picking Arkansas and embracing a tough challenge in the SEC to improve his game and draft stock. Best wishes to Jadon Haselwood and family. A great family by the way. Good kid.

I sure hope so given OU is headed to the rugged SEC in two years or so.

Now…if OU was staying in the Big 12 or moving to the PAC 12 or to the American Athletic Conference… I wouldn’t say Coach Venables would be the slam dunk choice. You could maybe then take a flyer on a younger coach like Dave Aranda or Shane Beamer or Dan Lanning or maybe even Lane Kiffin.

But not for this hire with these circumstances in place for OU given what’s at stake.

This is a Big Boy hire which will define Joe C’s ultimate legacy and OU’s football brand for the next ten to fifteen years.

I’m not going to jump the gun and assume it’s a deal until I here the words from Joe C’s mouth at a presser of some sort. But I hope it’s Coach Venables.

Why? Because he’s a winner. He comes from the Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops, Dabo Swiiney coaching trees. He’s tough. He’s smart. He’s a great recruiter familiar with the SEC and what it takes to win in the South at a nationally elite level.

But most of all you could envision a seamless meld with Coach Venables with Joe C and Bob Stoops forming an OU football power triangle of sorts as Joe C gets older.

Coach Venables would be the national face of the program and I think any OU fan would feel good about him being the voice/face of the program in a recruit’s home talking to his parents about why OU is a special place to play football and attend college.

You can never assume anything in coaching hires. I remember my friend was the O State beat writer and the Cowboys were in the process of replacing Bob Simmons as their football coach.

It had been announced Dirk Knutter from Boise State had made a verbal deal to become the next O State coach in two days. The next day I’m playing racquetball with my friend and his cell rang with AP’s Owen Canfield on the other end of the line.

True story …Owen Canfield then tells my friend on Friday the day before the scheduled presser in Stillwater that Dirk Knutter had just signed a contract with Arizona State to become their next head coach.

That is how Les Miles was to later become the O State head coach.

That’s why even though I’m thrilled with what ESPN’s Chris Lowe just reported on Brent Venables being the next OU head coach—I know for a fact you never assume anything in the world of college football hires.

But I very much hope Coach Venables is the hire.

I just saw the Top 6 from the Committee and I’m fine with what they did with Georgia. I’m not sure I agree with what they did because I would have dropped Georgia to No. 4. But I get it. They don’t want a back to back rematch.

But otherwise I agree with the Top 6 as a whole. I’ll do my Final Top 12 tonight and then get ready to head to Detroit per the flat screen to cover the Thunder playing against Cade Cunningham for the first time ever.

I guess I pretty much need to step up my Thunder coverage so as everything written about the Thunder in the Land of Lollipops, Rainbows, and Butterflies per the local media has some sort of truthful honest balance it.

I hope the Thunder Lollipop People can handle the truth now and again.

So much to cover in the world of Oklahoma sports.

Oh… this just in from a source…Joe Brady was fired by the Carolina Panthers. Connect those dots and see where that takes or doesn’t take Caleb Williams.

Never a dull moment in college football.

What a haunting day this will be for Oklahoma State fans forever. This was that Haley’s Comet moment and with eight plays from scrimmage from the Baylor one yard line to win their first ever legit Big 12 Championship…. they couldn’t get it done. I can’t believe Gundy once out of the eight plays didn’t just turn Sanders loose on the corner and say , ‘Go win it for us, tiger.” Talk about being conflicted as Mike Gundy’s unauthorized biographer. I don’t where my story goes from here.

He’s no Normna Dale from Hoosiers…that’s for certain. Gundy never would have let Jimmy Chitwood have the ball for that last shot.

I’m taking Dan Lanning off of Joe C’s list. That Georgia defense is a bunch of fake tough guys. Bryce Young you just won the Heisman Trophy….buddy.

Looks like 1 Alabama, 2 Michigan, 3 Cincy, and 4 Georgia to me if the data is objectively applied to get beyond the mystic reign of the SEC.

I’d make Georgia play Alabama again as the No. 4 seed after that performance by the Bulldogs.

So two guys on Joe C’s purported list…Dave Aranda and Luke Fickell have career days on this Championship Saturday.

Same old…Oklahoma State—some things even when you play I Wanna Be A Cowboy for them on your blog just never change. With or without that mullet–you can’t change him.

I think I’ll do my entire final Top 12 tomorrow morning.

Should have just let Jimmy Chitwood have the last shot..especially with Jaylen Warren not available. I wonder if anyone at the O State presser will ask that question. Doubt it. Not in Oklahoma.