OU guards are reason for concern
Missouri whacked the OU basketball team 73-64 Wednesday night, and Jeff Capel kept a stiff upper lip about his team’s newfound slump. “We’ll figure it out,” Capel said. “We’ve been really good all year.”
Not so. The Sooners aren’t really good, or even a little bit good, in their last three games, and OU’s guards have gone completely in the tank.
Here’s how bad it’s gotten. Capel has benched one of his guards each of the last three games for long stretches, and the message hasn’t really gotten across.
Capel played Austin Johnson for only 23 minutes against Kansas, basically going with seldom-used backup Omar Leary down the stretch. Johnson has played just so-so the last two games, and he got hot late against Missouri to reach so-so status — 11 points on 3-of-11 shooting.
Capel pulled Willie Warren from the starting lineup against Texas Tech for disciplinary reasons, and Warren seemed to sulk in his 12 minutes. Didn’t even score. Against Mizzou, Warren, like his fellow guards, played like he was in quicksand: 35 minutes, four turnovers, 3-of-11 shooting.
Capel played Tony Crocker only 16 minutes against Missouri. Crocker had two points on 1-of-5 shooting.
The Griffin brothers came to play, combining for 30 points and 29 rebounds on 13-of-20 shooting, and though Blake Griffin had six turnovers, no one could claim he was anything but tenacious.
Not so with his teammates. The Sooner guards are in a funk, and they’d better get out of it quick. Some teams have righted themselves in the conference tournament, but most elite teams are playing well going into the post-season.
Of the four Final Four teams in our state the past 21 years, three were riding high going into the Big 12 Tournament. Billy Tubbs’ 1988 OU team, Kelvin Sampson’s 2002 OU team and Eddie Sutton’s 2004 OSU team also hit high gear in February.
Sutton’s 1995 OSU team had its rocky roads before catching fire in Kansas City, winning the Big Eight Tournament and zipping to the Final Four.
So it can be done. But OU’s guards had better start playing much better if the Sooners want to fulfill the expectations of what they created with their great play earlier in the season.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I’ve never seen a Mizzou team that plays that well at home. But they’re a different bunch on the road. Unless OU gets it together on Saturday, they won’t have that big run in the Big 12 Tournament.