Emails in on Big 12 realignment
The new emails are in, and lots of talk about conference realignment.
Justin: “Disagree with you on where you put A&M. A&M should be put with OU and Nebraska and KU. The SEC asked A&M to join their conference in the early ’90s, and Texas politics prevented it. The SEC and Pac 10 would love to have A&M.”
I don’t think so. And here’s why. A&M has slipped in status. There was a time, and the early ’90s certainly was that time, when A&M football was considered a big deal. But now? I don’t see it. In fact, you could argue that no program has been hurt by the formation of the Big 12 as much as has A&M. Think about it. In 1995, when the Big 12 formed, you could argue that the best football programs in the Big 12 were 1. Nebraska; 2. Colorado; 3. Texas A&M. Don’t believe it? OU was a mess and getting messier. Texas was just floating along, not doing much. Kansas State had yet to rise. Look at what’s happened to A&M in 15 years. Oklahoma and Texas have totally eclipsed the Aggies. Texas Tech passed the Aggies. OSU caught the Aggies. You could argue that Missouri has caught the Aggies. If you ranked the Big 12 football schools in order of status today, A&M is not in the first division. And that’s not just a three- or four-year slump. That’s been going on for a decade. A&M flourished when the Southwest Conference was weak. When the SWC was powerful, back in the early ’70s and ’60s, A&M wasn’t much. That’s got to be a red flag for any new conference. The Aggies historically wither when the competition stiffens.
Mike: “Something I have yet to read; what about the other sports? Besides tradition, the geographical interests and economic aspects (for travel alone) should be a substantial concern for all athletic departments, university chancellors and the general public that wishes to travel to away games. This isn’t just about the obvious football powers within the Big 12. What about Nebraska’s women’s volleyball team? OSU’s golf team and wrestling team? The cross country, golf, gymnastics, soccer, tennis and others that often are not money making sports and whose travel budgets from breakup and reorganization may make them obsolete?”
Conference realignment is about football mostly and men’s basketball a little. Period. Nothing else matters. The minor sports won’t go away; they are protected by necessity. The NCAA requires schools to field a certain amount of teams of both sexes. Nebraska’s volleyball team is a blip on the radar. Same with OSU’s golf team. And any conference realignment would, by design, make enough extra money to offset increased travel costs. But don’t go thinking that wrestling teams and tennis teams are going to start flying all over the country. Like my proposed Pac-10/Big 12 merger. OU’s soccer team wouldn’t go play Washington every year. Divisional play would be paramount.
Tommy: “Kansas over OSU? LOL. Love it, Berry. Please, please, keep your Norman bias intack for the paper and the radio.”
Tommy. The word is “intact.” Please stay out of the public marketplace of ideas wearing your OSU colors. You are hurting your school. But you raise an interesting point. If you had a lick of charm, you would have asked the question this way: Why Kansas over OSU? And here’s the answer. Kansas brings the Kansas City television market and a nationally-elite program in one of the two sports that matters. And for those leagues that care about academics, KU is considered one of the better schools in the Big 12. OSU does not bring a television market, so long as OU already is included. The Sooners bring the OKC and Tulsa markets. And OSU does not provide a nationally-elite program in a sport that matters. OSU’s salvation is its ties to OU. The state legislature isn’t likely to let the Sooners leave without the Cowboys, though you never know.
Josh: “I enjoyed your comments regarding Texas, et al, going west. Great minds must think alike, I’ve been telling people this since the conference talk started. It makes too much sense academically, financially and competitively. I think the academic side of the conference realignment cannot be understated. Of course this is about money and football, but the mission of these universities is to educate. The Pac-10 has seven members of the AAU, and the conference basically doubles as a research consortium. Texas, Texas A&M, Colorado and Kansas are all members of the AAU, and in a merger scenario would seem likely to go to the Big-Pac (along with OU). Which brings me to my next point; I wouldn’t sell Colorado short in this scenario. Although the athletic department is in disarray at the moment, Colorado brings the Denver market; it is academically on par with several Pac-10 schools, Colorado is a more liberal institution much like the schools on the left coast, and yet another factor is that California is home to more CU alums than any other state not named Colorado. The Buffs are a synch to be included. If this scenario does indeed play out, I believe politics will decide the final spot. OSU, Texas Tech and Kansas State are the schools involved in the precarious situation. It is a scary yet very realistic thought for an OSU psycho such as me.”
Now that’s a good letter. Insightful, shows a working knowledge of the landscape but admits to some fear of the unknown. And OSU should be concerned. It’s possible OSU could be left out. I don’t think that will happen, but it’s possible. Here’s the deal on Colorado. Everything Josh said is true. But what if the Buffs literally don’t have the money or the stomach to stay in the main race? What if Colorado says forget it, we’re going to downsize, go to the Mountain West Conference and quit trying to keep up with $100 million budgets?
Larry: “I certainly understand why Sooner media would prefer that the likes of Texas Tech be consigned to the Irrelevant Leftover Conference. I’m old enough to remember 1995, so let’s be honest here. Our inclusion in the Big 12 had most of the old Big Eight media miffed in the first place. And I can also appreciate that those long November rides home from the South Plains have to be getting old for the Sooner Nation. But you folks have a lot to learn about Texas politics. None of the three state schools can split on their own without approval of the Legislature, and believe it or not Texas Tech will have plenty of support. And not just from Tech alumni. The three schools also have a long and storied history together and a fair amount of mutual respect. They aren’t going to just blithely abandon one another because some West Coast conference, the NCAA or ESPN crooks their finger at them. And as competitive as we are with one another, we’re all Texans and proud of it. We are heavily invested in our rivalries. Neither UT nor A&M will take kindly to a sister institution being shoved to third-world status by faceless heathen outsiders. UT, to its everlasting credit, has already spurned the Pac 10 once when they unofficially took a run at the Longhorns but wouldn’t consider including Tech, which Texas had insisted as a condition of any possible interest on their part. And really, if the question of which state’s schools get included in any new conference alignment comes down to a high-stakes political pissing match between, say, Kansas (or Oklahoma for that matter) and Texas, does anyone actually think Texas loses?”
Here’s a bit of trivia that will surprise a lot of people. The Southwest Conference played longer without Texas Tech than it did with Texas Tech: 41 years without Tech, which was in the Border Conference, 40 years with Tech. So let’s not get all misty-eyed over UT-A&M-Tech allegiance. Some legislators would fight for Tech, but the Longhorns aren’t going to the mat to support the Red Raiders. That’s just silly. Texas was ready to go to the Pac-10 solo in 1994, had someone (Donnie Duncan) not provided a better alternative, in the form of the Big 12. Personally, I think leaving behind Baylor would create more of a political problem for UT and A&M than leaving behind Tech.
Tom wrote about the Big 12 baseball tournament: “Who thought up a format where all Saturday games were meaningless? Attendance ought to be great. With this format, the tourney ought to go the way of the softball tourney. Away. This is what is wrong with the Big 12. The SEC tourney is having record crowds and they set up their tourney like the College World Series; two double elimination tournaments and one championship game. Every game is meaningful. It is almost like the Big 12 doesn’t want to compete and it shows. So while the SEC has record crowds the Big 12 presents Meaningless Saturday! You know, I think the coaches don’t want to compete to a certain extent. I was reading Bob Stoops’ comments about the coaches voting 12-0 against playing the Big 12 title game. The softball coaches cancelling their tourney. Baseball coaches want this round robin mess. If you compare with the SEC, they compete across the board. No one’s voting against the championship games or canceling a tourney. They just compete. It should be no surprise when they win.”
I think there’s some truth to this theory, but I also am slow to throw rose petals at the SEC. I don’t think the SEC football coaches are all that crazy about the football title game, either. The Big 12 baseball went to this format because of some goofy concern about using too much pitching. Or not using enough. It is a total mess. I mean, you’ve got OU starting a game at 10:50 p.m. Wednesday and you’ve got four games on a Saturday that are total exhibitions. An absolute mess.
Jeremy: “I saw on your online video where you mentioned the Big 8 Tournament was “OSU, OU and two other teams …”. That’s the second time I’ve heard you mention or write that. I went to two Big Eight tourneys (’95 and ’96), but neither were four-team affairs. I honestly can’t remember if the whole conference came, but there were at least six teams. In ’95, I vividly remember OU, OSU, Nebraska, Iowa State and Kansas being there. Also, looking at the OU media guide, back in ’83, they played Kansas State, Iowa State, Nebraska and Oklahoma State in the tourney, which means there were likely at least six teams there as well. In the next years, it’s inconclusive, just going by who OU played. I’m just curious if the Big Eight did play a bigger format, then went to four teams in the ’80s, and then came back to the bigger format in the ’90s or something like that? You going out to any of the games? I’ll be out tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.”
If someone I know is kidnapped, and I begin a frantic search for them, and some mysterious clue points in the direction of the Brick, I’ll take several shots of whiskey for the first time in my life and force myself to go out there. Otherwise, it’s a pass. The format is just horrible. You don’t know when your team is playing. The games don’t mean anything. You need other teams to win to advance your cause. It’s ridiculous. But for the history lesson. In 1983, a batch of rainouts plagued the conference. So in an emergency vote, they brought six (or maybe all seven) schools to the tournament. Otherwise, it was always four. At least starting in 1977. In 1976, they had all eight teams and it stretched out over a week. In 1993, the Big Eight expanded to six teams. I don’t know why. Don’t remember. So I guess the final four tournaments were six teams, the first one was eight and 1983 was six or seven. But from 1977 through 1992, every year except ’83 was four teams.”
Jason wrote about my blog concerning Kelvin Sampson as an NBA head coach, which said most NBA coaches concern themselves with defense and let the offense take care of itself: “For it to work, you would have to be right about the offensive end of the floor. As much as I loved Sampson’s teams’ effort, it seemed too much of the time like getting a non-desperation shot off before the 45-second shot clock buzzer was Mission Impossible; 24 seconds into the shot clock was about the time Quannas White would take the hand-off out by mid-court to reset the offense for the second of three resets on each possession.”
Exactly. But that’s not the way NBA players play. The 24-second clock is a great invention. It forces teams to start playing offense immediately. That’s the problem with college basketball. It fritters away seconds, waiting to initiate the offense.
David: “I am curious. You said the Cowboy administration ‘frittered away the $30 million in hand to build a new ballpark.’ I thought the ballpark building as well as the rest of the athletic village was postponed because of BP Investments and the stock market as a whole took a severe hit. (Mine did too, so I won’t criticize any fund for losing money). I respect the idea that the athletic department wants to pay for these things as they go rather than going into a large debt to finance it.”
OSU had something like $300 million in hand for all of the Athletic Village additions, but Mike Holder and Boone Pickens wanted to sit on it and grow it even bigger before building. The idea was, build up so much money that maintenance on the facilities could be funded. A reasonable decision. But soon enough, the money was all gone, so much to the point that Pickens had to give more money just to finish the football stadium. Was it a calculated gamble or greed? I don’t know. But either way, it didn’t work out, and OSU sits here with only the football addition, which is great but doesn’t help anyone else.
Shawn: “Beal looked pretty good last year. Do you think this is the breakout year for Beal? Will he be the next Suh this year?”
More optimism. Jeremy Beal already has had a breakout year. He’s a great defensive end who does nothing but make plays. But Ndamukong Suh was a dominant defensive tackle who completely plugged the middle. Suh was the No. 2 pick in the draft and could have gone No. 1 had the Rams not been in the market for a quarterback. That’s not Jeremy Beal’s future.
David took issue with my statement that I’ll pick Texas to beat OU until OU actually beats Texas: “Texas football has many weaknesses in 2010. Their new QB, Garrett “Deer-in-the-headlights” Gilbert. He will make many freshman mistakes in 2010 and his five-turnover and 15-of-40 performance vs. Alabama will recur again in 2010. 2. Texas has an extremely weak running game. They do not have a featured running back. They have the same players who in the last two seasons had Texas near the bottom nationally of rushing by running backs. Colt McCoy made up the slack by his rushing, but he is gone. Losing Jordan Shipley, who has caught over 200 passes in the last two years. Texas lost the two key players on their defensive line, Houston and Sergio Kindle. 5. Texas lost three starters on their offensive line, including their center. The new starters will be untried youth and one guy who is slated to start is Trey Allen, who has been such a disappointment as an O-lineman he was moved to defense last season. Texas lost its money field-goal kicker to graduation. The schedule is much tougher…Texas has to play OU of course, Texas Tech in Lubbock (Tech will win easily), Kansas State in Manhattan (UT traditionally has trouble with KSU), Nebraska in Lincoln (Nebraska will beat their ass as this will be a grudge game). Now, let’s look at OU. Offensively OU will have a more balanced attack with our best group of runners in years. Demarco Murray is back with his quickness and speed being healthy. Jermie Calhoun was the star of the spring with several 60 yard runs. Roy Finch was the state of Florida offensive player of the year. Another Joe Washington, Brennan Clay, Rivals’ No. 2-ranked all-purpose running back is pure excitement. Jonathon Miller, who was great last season before being injured. Mossis Madu who had a great 2008 year is back at running back. This group of Sooner running backs is scary great. OU has a great group of wide receivers for Landry Jones, including two great newcomers, Kenny Stills who shined in the spring, and Just McCay. I look for a big season from DeJuan Miller and Jaz Reynolds. Ryan Broyles will be an All-American. Landry Jones will be 100 percent better. In our bowl game, he had over 400 yards passing. Bob Stoops, who last spring said he was very dissatisfied with the OU offensive line’s progress, just last week said the opposite about the 2010 line. In fact, he said he was so pleased with what he has seen, that the offensive line could be a strength of the entire team. The line will be deeper and more confident. Eric Mensik is a great addition, as is Donald Stephenson. Jarvis Jones is playing with a new more positive attitude and he could emerge as a vocal leader. I think Stephen Good will have a great season, as will Tyler Evans and Ben Habern. Defense, preseason all-American Travis Lewis has also become a vocal leader of the team. Ronnell Lewis is a beast and Tom Wort is back and healthy. Austin Box and Bird should play a lot. The OU defensive line? It still amazes me that Jeremy Beal came back for his senior year as he would have been a high NFL drat choice. Combined with Frank Alexander, R.J. Washington, David King and the other defensive ends, this will definitely be a strength of the entire team. The interior has JaMarcus McFarland (a potential superstar), Stacy McGee and Casey Walker. Adrian Taylor is rehabbing nicely and he should be a factor in 2010. In fact he is already on some Big 12 conference preseason first teams. OU has two starters in the secondary who easily can become superstars. Quinton Carter and Jonathon Nelson, who is perhaps the fastest guy on the OU team. He has blazing speed and his leaping ability is incredible. OU has great depth in the secondary, including big hitting Kevin Brent and Gabe Lynn. Quinton Carter will someday be a star in the NFL. He is that good. The OU kicking game, last year the coverage was exceptional, led by monster hitting by Ronnell Lewis. It will be as good or better this season. The punting will be done by preseason all-Big 12 Tress Way, who was awesome last season. OU has four field goal kickers; I am sure one will emerge as our kicker. I think that we go all of the way.”
Do me a favor, all you fans. Next time you’re bragging about your favorite team, be it college, pro or high school. Be it football, basketball or baseball. Doesn’t matter. Go back and remember what David just wrote. Which is this. All of our players are great, all of your players stink. Our young players who struggled last year will get better, all of your players who struggled last year are no good. Our recruits are the next Joe Washington; your recruits don’t matter. Our secondary includes superstars-in-waiting; your secondary, which annually is among the best in America, will have no ballplayers. Look, I like optimism as much as the next guy. But can you settle down, David? Think about what you just wrote. That OU will even find a kicker. That’s not optimism. That’s insanity.
Michael wrote about the All-College and my idea of a Bedlam matchup: “Why not add Tulsa and ORU to the mix, too? Have those two schools be the opening act before the OU-OSU main event, or just let each of the little guys have a crack at one of the big schools. Either way, all four Division I basketball schools in Oklahoma get to be involved. Then it really would be an “all-college” event.”
I’m all for OU and OSU playing ORU and Tulsa. I think they should play each other once a year. That way, both OU and OSU play in Tulsa once a year. But it’s a horrible idea to include ORU and Tulsa in the All-College. They are Tulsa schools with strong Tulsa identities. They should be playing in Tulsa.
Brian: “What is stopping Bedlam basketball at the All College? Does the All Sports Association not want to schedule it or is it the two universities not wanting it?”
The All Sports Association would love it. It’s the schools that aren’t sure.
Looking forward to Labor Day football
Memorial Day is a great holiday. Sort of kicks off the summer. And Memorial Day has great meaning, too. I’ve been to two cemeteries so far and will hit two more on Sunday before spending the afternoon with family I don’t often get to see.
As holidays go, Memorial Day has it all over Labor Day. The weather is better in late May. The meaning is far better. The calendar spot is better; the first of three summer holidays instead of the last of three.
But Labor Day beats Memorial Day in one huge element. Football. Labor Day has football.
I took a peek at the Labor Day schedule this year; we’ve got two college football games. Navy-Maryland at 3 p.m. on ESPN and Boise State-Virginia Tech from the Redskins’ FedEx Field in suburban D.C. at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
Not bad. That will make for a fun Labor Day evening, capping off the first weekend of college football.
Labor Day Sunday has two games relevant to Oklahomans. Tulsa plays at East Carolina at 1 p.m. on ESPN2. SMU plays at Texas Tech, Tommy Tuberville’s debut, at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN.
The weekend kicks off Thursday, and among the televised games are Southern Miss (Larry Fedora) at South Carolina at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN, followed by Southern Cal at Hawaii in Lane Kiffin’s debut at 10 p.m. on ESPN. And Pittsburgh plays at Utah (7:30 p.m., Versus).
On Friday, Arizona (Mike Stoops) plays at Toledo at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
Saturday’s television schedule isn’t finalized but among the games set are UCLA at Kansas State (2:30 p.m., ABC), Texas at Rice (2:30 p.m., ESPN), Oregon State-TCU from Arlington (6:45 p.m., ESPN), LSU-North Carolina from Atlanta (7 p.m., ABC), Cincinnati at Fresno State (9 p.m., ESPN2) and Wisconsin at Nevada-Las Vegas (10 p.m., Versus).
Fox Sports Net has not selected its games for Week 1. It’s possible that OSU’s home game against Washington State or OU’s home game against Utah State could be selected, though the Missouri-Illinois game from St. Louis would seem to be the best remaining Big 12 game.
Chicago-Philadelphia: Rival cities reach rare class
The Stanley Cup Final matchup — Philadelphia Flyers vs. Chicago BlackHawks — places those grand old northern cities in a rare sports class. They have completed the grand slam.
Oklahoma City is an infant as a major-league city, and its playoff rivalries are yet to be written. But some ancient gothams have been at this business since 1871, including Philadelphia and Chicago. And with the Flyers-BlackHawks Stanley Cup Final, Philadelphia and Chicago now have been paired against each other in the championship round of all four major American team sports. Even if most of the matchups involve franchises no longer with us.
Hockey, you know about.
Football: the Chicago Cardinals and the Philadelphia Eagles squared off in back-to-back NFL title games, with the Cardinals winning in 1947 and the Eagles in 1948. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1960.winning in 191947 and 1948.
Basketball: The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Stags in the 1947 finals of the Basketball Association of America; the BAA eventually became the NBA. The Warriors moved to San Francisco in 1962; the Stags folded in 1950.
Baseball: The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Serieses of 1929 and 1910. The Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955.
So Philly has a 4-1 edge on Chicago. Of course, Chicago is playing short-handed in the rivalry, since it’s cursed with the Cubs and White Sox.
Only one other pair of cities have squared off in the finals of all four sports, and their rivalry is a lot more modern than Chicago-Philly. Boston and St. Louis have become frequent combatants in title games or series even though their post-season rivalry didn’t start until 1946.
The Red Sox and Cardinals have played in three World Serieses: 1946, 1967 and 2004, with St. Louis winning the first two and, maybe you heard, Boston winning in ’04. The 2001 Patriots (suburbs count) beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. The Celtics and St. Louis Hawks met in the NBA Finals in 1957, 1958, 1960 and 1961, with the Hawks winning only in ’58. The Hawks moved to Atlanta in 1968. And the Boston Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues in the 1970 Stanley Cup Final. So Boston has a 6-3 edge on St. Louis.
Only two other pairs of cities have met in the finals of three of the four major sports. And both include Boston.
Boston-New York: The Bruins beat the New York Rangers in both the 1972 and 1929 Stanley Cup Final; the 2007 Giants (I count the Meadowlands as New York in football but not in basketball or hockey) beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl; the Mets beat the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series; and the Red Sox won the World Series in 1916 over the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) and in 1912 over the New York Giants. So Boston has a 4-2 edge on New York; so much for the Curse of the Bambino.
Boston-Philadelphia: The 2004 Patriots beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl; the Flyers beat the Bruins in the 1974 Stanley Cup Final; and in an amazing stretch of city rivalry, the Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1914 World Series, then the Red Sox beat the Phillies in the 1915 World Series. So Boston leads Philly 3-1.
Boston and New York, and Boston and Philadelphia, won’t complete their grand slam without NBA reconfiguration. Boston, Philly and New York have been in the same division or conference since the league was formed.
Championship matchups can make for strange bedfellows. Dallas and Buffalo have met in as many different sports finals (two; Super Bowl and Stanley Cup) as New York and Chicago. Los Angeles and Newark (NBA, NHL) the same as LA and Chicago.
The cities that meet the most often in finals are, no surprise, Boston and Los Angeles, thanks entirely to the NBA, where the Lakers and Celtics have played each other in 10 Finals. Chicago and New York (baseball, NFL) have met in nine championships, matching Boston and St. Louis.
New York’s championship history is fun to browse. Gotham has been paired with 30 other cities, not counting its own boroughs.
Chicago nine times and Los Angeles seven (all between 1963 and 1981; four World Series, three NBA).
Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis each six, with the latter two all coming in baseball.
Baltimore five (one baseball, four NFL) and Green Bay five (all NFL).
Minneapolis four (two NBA, two NHL).
Cincinnati three (all baseball), Detroit three (one NFL, two NHL) and Toronto three (all NHL).
Atlanta, Cleveland, Edmonton, Washington, Vancouver, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh all twice. And Buffalo, Denver, Miami, Montreal, Louisville, Phoenix, Oakland, Providence, San Francisco, Rochester, San Antonio and Salt Lake City once each. Before you write, no, it wasn’t the Knickerbockers vs. Jazz in a New York/Salt Lake matchup. It was the New York Nets (playing on Long Island) against the Utah Stars in the 1974 ABA Finals.
Sampson to Clippers? Don’t bet on it
Kelvin Sampson’s NBA stock is soaring. His work with the Milwaukee Bucks as Scott Skiles’ assistant coach has drawn notice, as Milwaukee staged a breakout season.
Now Sampson is being mentioned in a variety of reports as a candidate to become head coach of either the Clippers or the Cavaliers.
Good for Sampson. I never saw him as an NBA coach, but heck, I wasn’t an NBA expert. Not much of one today. Maybe Sampson is the perfect NBA coach; offense sort of takes care of itself in the league. Pick’n roll. Drive and kick. Pass and cut. It’s not complicated.
Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Kelvin Sampson and head coach Scott Skiles during the Thunder - Bucks game November 27, 2009 in the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. BY HUGH SCOTT, THE OKLAHOMAN
What the best NBA coaches achieve is manage big personalities and get their players to sell out in effort. I don’t know how Sampson would do on the personality deal. You never know. But Sampson would do great on the effort factor. Sampson teams always played hard. Always. It was non-negotiable. Play hard or take a seat.
That’s why the Clippers would be a tough job for Sampson. The Clipper culture would drive Sampson nuts. Baron Davis? Are you kidding me?
I also don’t know how Blake Griffin would take the news. We’d always heard — though never confirmed the theory — that Blake was no Sampson fan. Taylor Griffin played two years for Sampson at OU, but talk was that Taylor and Blake weren’t crazy about Sampson and that Taylor might transfer if Sampson had stayed.
I assume the Clippers brass would talk to Blake Griffin before hiring Sampson. If Sampson ends up coaching the Clippers, I think we can safely discount all those old rumors about the Griffin/Sampson relationship.
But like I said, Sampson is better off elsewhere. You can’t go turning down NBA head coaching jobs, not when you’re an assistant trying to crack through the floor. But there certainly are better situations than Clipperville for Sampson.
Cleveland, for instance. Has there ever been a more prototype Sampson team than the Cavs without LeBron James? Hard-nosed. Chip-on-their-shoulder. Defensive-minded. Sampson would be a perfect fit to take Cleveland into its post-LeBron era. The Cavs wouldn’t win like they’ve been winning, but they wouldn’t be a pushover.
And even if LeBron re-signed with Cleveland, Sampson would be a good fit. LeBron doesn’t need an offensive coach. Six-foot-8 forwards who run the offense and lead the team in rebounding and the league in scoring don’t need a lot of offensive direction from the bench. They need a coach who convinces everyone to play their butt off.
Here’s hoping the Cavaliers, not the Clippers, hire Kelvin Sampson.
KU ticket scandal: a breach of trust
The University of Kansas ticket scandal, which has reached Oklahoma shores with its ties to OU, is a breach of trust with fans.
KU personnel, including former OU employees Tom and Charlotte Blubaugh, allegedly sold Jayhawk tickets and pocketed the money, and the KU report alleges the former OU employees did the same thing in Norman.
Kansas Athletics Director Lew Perkins answers questions during a news conference Wednesday, May 26, 2010, in Lawrence, Kan. The University of Kansas said Wednesday that a secretive scam by six university employees included the "inappropriate" sale of $1 million worth of men's basketball and football tickets over the past five years. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
The tickets in question are estimated to have been worth at least $1 million and perhaps as high as $3 million. That’s what a pending federal investigation will focus on. But KU knows that’s not the biggest cost to the Jayhawks and would not be the biggest cost to OU if it’s found that the Blubaughs did the same thing in Norman.
The biggest cost is the breach of trust.
Think of it this way. You’re an OU football fan and have been on the season-ticket waiting list for years. Or a KU basketball fan, waiting for the impossible dream of getting season tickets to Allen Fieldhouse. Then you hear that the Jayhawks, and maybe the Sooners several years ago, had enough spare tickets that ticket managers were selling them to scalpers and whoever else, with the proceeds going in their pockets.
Or maybe you’re already a season-ticket holder. But the most prized possession in the programs — a KU NCAA Tournament ticket or an OU-Texas football ticket — aren’t always accessible through ethical means. You discover that ticket brokers have jumped ahead of you in line, and the money’s not even going to the athletic department that has your devotion.
That’s a plate-breaker.
This is no small story. This is an allegation of high-dollar fraud. This is a serious schism in the school/fan relationship. The next time a Kansas fan doesn’t get March Madness tickets, what’s the fan to think? The next time an OU fan doesn’t get bowl or Texas tickets, the assumptions will come naturally.
The longstanding culture of college athletics is one of taking fans for granted. The arrival of multiple major-league franchises in Oklahoma City has shown us that pro sports do a much better job of catering to fans than do colleges.
And now this, with the Kansas ticket scandal and residue all the way down here. Universities keep saying trust us, and fans keep saying OK, and some day, that answer might be different.
OSU baseball’s slump hurts All-Sports Association
Here’s a good question. Does OSU baseball miss the Big 12 Tournament as much as the Big 12 Tournament miss OSU?
The answer is no. As much as the Cowboys and their fans feel dejected and embarrassed, their disappointment doesn’t match that of the All Sports Association, which has been putting on the Big 12/Big Eight baseball tournament since 1976.
OSU's Luis Uribe celebrates after a home run in the third inning of the Bedlam college baseball game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State at the AT&T Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Saturday, May 8, 2010. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman
OSU, which came to rule the Big Eight event, with 16 straight titles, was the staple of the tournament. The Cowboys built a fan base that far surpassed OU’s, and first All Sports Stadium and then Bricktown’s ballpark were tinted heavily orange.
Even when the Big 12 arrived and mushroomed the tournament to an almost-unmanageable eight teams, creating multiple matinee games involving teams from outside state lines (Kansas State-Missouri at 9 a.m., anyone?), the tournament had a solid foundation.
But that foundation is missing this week, as the tournament starts today in Bricktown, and it was missing last season, when OSU also missed the tournament. And you wonder if the foundation returns even when the Cowboys get around to coming back to the Big 12 Tournament.
Two weeks ago, OSU hosted an absolutely critical three-game series against Texas A&M. Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. That three-game series drew 1,323 fans. Combined. Crowds of 397, 422 and 504.
OSU’s baseball fan base has eroded. The reasons for coach Frank Anderson’s struggles have been well-documented; administrative problems in scholarship-counting have plagued OSU twice this decade, and the Cowboys have been playing with less than a full complement of scholarships throughout Anderson’s seven years on the job.
It’s a valid excuse for why OSU has dipped competitively. I don’t know if it’s an excuse for OSU finishing last in the 10-team Big 12.
Baseball is one of those sports where I don’t know if you fire a coach solely for lack of success. Football, men’s basketball, even women’s basketball. But baseball? At some schools, the answer might be yes, and OSU is one of those schools. If Anderson didn’t have the scholarship crutch, he would have been gone a long time ago.
The scholarship situation is out of Anderson’s control. As is the economic decisions made by his administration, which frittered away the $30 million in hand to build a new ballpark.
But a new ballpark won’t bring in baseball fans in Stillwater, if the team is playing like this. At some point, OSU has to look at the declining interest in baseball and wonder how it can be reversed.
Tradition is a precarious thing. It takes years to build and years to lose, but you lose it faster than you build it. OSU is losing its baseball tradition.
And no organization feels that impact more than the All Sports Association and its Big 12 Baseball Tournament.
All-College: Don’t give up on Bedlam
The 2010 All-College matchups have been announced, and it’s a solid doubleheader: OSU-Alabama and OU-Cincinnati. Could be a lot worse and has been.
But it still would have been fun to have made the 75th All-College a total Bedlam affair. OU-OSU women, followed by OSU-OU men. A non-conference Bedlam showdown remains an idea whose time has come, for all the reasons I’ve listed before.
A December Bedlam game in Oklahoma City would jumpstart college basketball interest in a state that historically, even in the best of hoop times, hasn’t reached high gear until January. In these days of beleaguered OU basketball, an extra Bedlam game is even more needed.
A December Bedlam game would be a good early-season pressure test for players who are mostly pampered by the pre-New Year’s schedule. Abundant home games against pushover teams, mixed in with only occasional tough matchups.
Cincinnati and Alabama certainly qualify as legitimate foes, but a game against your arch-rival would add even more atmosphere to the Ford Center. College basketball is suffering from a dearth of meaningful games. The rousing success of the NCAA Tournament comes at a cost; it dwarfs the regular season. And the dumbed-down scheduling practices of almost every major school means that the conference schedule overshadows the non-conference.
College basketball’s November and December has become a virtual exhibition season. A Bedlam All-College would go a long way to changing that.
Chat Recap: Berry Tramel
Thunder’s Brooks moving up coaching list
The Cavaliers’ firing of Mike Brown on Monday means the Thunder’s Scott Brooks moves even higher up the list. Brooks, who just completed his first full season as the Thunder coach, now stands 17th in the NBA in coaching longevity at his current job.
Believe it or not, 13 NBA teams have made coaching changes since the Thunder elevated Brooks to the job in November 2008. Welcome to the volatile world of NBA coaching.
Oklahoma City Thunder coach Scott Brooks, right, accepts the Red Auerbach trophy as the 2009-2010 NBA Coach of the Year from NBA commissioner David Stern before game 3 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Thunder in Oklahoma City, Thursday, April 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)
And of the 16 who have been on the job longer than Brooks, six have only 13 games on him. The Thunder was 13 games into the 2008-09 when P.J. Carlesimo was fired and Brooks was elevated; Dallas’ Rick Carlisle, Phoenix’s Alvin Gentry, the Knickerbockers’ Mike D’Antoni, Milwaukee’s Scott Skiles, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra and Charlotte’s Larry Brown each just completed their second full season on the job.
So the list of long-time coaches in the NBA is pretty thin. Utah’s Jerry Sloan is 22 years on the job. San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. No one else is in double digits.
Boston’s Doc Rivers and Denver’s George Karl have been on their jobs six years; Portland’s Nate McMillan and the Lakers’ Phil Jackson five years each. Golden State’s Don Nelson is at four. Houston’s Rick Adelman, Indiana’s Jim O’Brien and Orlando’s Stan Van Gundy are at three years each.
Stay on the job just a little while and you move up fast.
Emails in on Switzer, realignment, OU hoops
The new emails are in, and the talk is about Barry Switzer, conference realignment and the OU basketball mess.
Tony: “I’m sure others have told you this, but I hope you’re considering writing a book about the Switzer years. Your recent blog series was fantastic, yet something tells me it barely scratched the surface.”
By my last count, there were 34 books already about OU. Maybe there’s another Switzer book out there that can steer clear of Bootlegger’s Boy, but I’m hard-pressed to see it. Switzer’s got a story, literally, about every player who ever played for him, but that seems like a limited market on readership. Maybe I’m wrong.
Correna: “Just now getting back to you regarding your very touching story of Switzer’s Gang together again. I am a 73-year-old, two-time cancer survivor, trying to take care of my garden, praying all those nasty storms pass on by. You always try to bring out the good in other people’s lives. We all remember Barry Switzer when he fought his alcohol demons, but he was blessed with being a leader and inspiration for all the boys that needed a big chance in life.”
Well, I guess this offsets those letters that claim I never write anything positive. Like most everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Kent: “I’ve enjoyed the old Switzer stories, a lot of funny things that wouldn’t happen today. Do you think Bob Stoops knows how important it is to beat Texas? Think about this. Royal ran Bud out, Barry ran out Darrell. I thought Bob would run Mack out, but it may be the other way!”
I have to believe that Stoops knows exactly how important it is to beat Texas. And sure, Brown could run Stoops off, same as Stoops could have run off Brown. But I see Stoops and Brown more like Switzer and Osborne, or Royal and Broyles. Long-time rivals who push each other.
Bill: “Loved the Switzer stories. My family has many fond memories of the 1980s traveling to away games, staying at the team hotel. Barry, his coaching staff and his players were very engaging, willing to sit down and regale the fans with stories. And unfortunately, I think your comment on Bob Stoops in the blog post was directly on point. Bob’s not a bad guy, albeit nowhere near as personable as Switzer, but he treats interacting with the public — fans, media, I suspect everyone who doesn’t have a checkbook lined with zeros – like a prostate exam. It’s a shame, because his growing aloofness will taint what has been an era of football almost on a par with Switzer. I’d be curious to read your ruminations one of these days about the football program and its growing detachment from the public. Naïve fool that I am, I’ve always operated under the assumption that the program belonged to the public. One of these days, though, I’m growing more convinced King Robert will lock the public out of a game. It’s interesting to see this ‘Year of the Fan’ nonsense from the OU athletic department, on the heels of the Thunder’s success.
I’m not so sure it’s just a Switzer/Stoops deal. I think it’s just as much a then/now phenomenon. Times have changed. Coaches are distrustful of most everybody.
Michael: “You should write an article on expansion. The former writer for your paper who is now with ESPN thinks Texas to the SEC is a done deal. They would want to retain their rivals of OU and A&M. If the expansion happens and the SEC grows and decides to add from the Big 12 and not the ACC, do you think that they will go after Texas, Texas A&M, OU and OSU or Texas, Texas A&M, OU and Kansas? Kansas would be basically a mirror school to Kentucky (great basketball, adequate football) but with a better academic reputation. On the Kansas side, the SEC would add three American Association of Universities schools and then have a ratio of 5/16 AAU schools and not 2/12. Kansas would add the Kansas City and Wichita markets as well. They would have two major powers in basketball. OSU has a better football reputation and easier travel.”
Only trouble is, I don’t think OU can go without OSU. So if the SEC wants OU, it has to take OSU. You can certainly make the argument that Kansas is more valuable to a league than OSU would be, but you can’t make the argument that Kansas is more valuable than OU.
Roy: “True, in college football money talks loudest, but I think most commentators have missed something about Texas’ values. UT prides itself on being a great university and progressive and would not want to be associated with the ‘Old South’ in the west division of the SEC with the likes of Ole Miss and Mississippi State. They already don’t much like being in the semi-rural Big 12, I would say. So, I see the Horns headed to the Pac 10 (11), maybe or maybe not taking along A&M, OU, Kansas, Colorado to form an East division along with the Arizona schools. Texas would like to be thought of like Stanford in various ways, not like Tech and the “State” colleges of the Big 12. And they’re right. One of the things that made Notre Dame great and a national university (and rich), was and is their scheduling of games against great institutions in high-visibility venues, such as L.A., San Francisco (Berkley and Palo Alto), Seattle, Phoenix. And now Portland and Eugene are becoming ‘in’ places, more like Austin than, say, Ames. That’s why the Irish play Navy (Philadelphia or Baltimore or Washington), Rice (Houston), Boston College, Miami, and, oh yeah, USC, Stanford, Washington. OU had better play its cards right, or be left with the distinction of being the ‘Harvard’ of Hicksville.”
I don’t disagree with the general thesis that Texas would rather be aligned with the Pac-10 than the SEC. Not that UT wouldn’t go to the SEC. But I think there’s something to the cultural talk that Roy is talking about. I think Texas most of all would like to remain in a vibrant Big 12, because then the ‘Horns would be calling the shots. That wouldn’t happen in the SEC or the Pac-10. Texas turned down a Pac-10 invitation in 1994 to form the Big 12, and the Big 12 has been very, very good to UT. I don’t think Texas thinks it’s thought of like Tech and the ‘States.’
Kirby: “If only Texas would leave the Big 12, what nobody has said, it certainly would raise OU’s chances to go undefeated every year and be in the national championship game. But I don’t know how that would figure into a financial analysis.”
By that line of thinking, if OU would just join Conference USA, the Sooners would be golden. But in truth, you are defined by your opponents, Texas pushes OU the same way that OU pushes Texas, and the last thing OU wants is to be split off from the Longhorns.
Mike wrote about the OU basketball mess: “If folks cheat and the school can’t do much about it, why is it the school that gets punished the most – except in cases like Sampson? Isn’t that what ‘lack of institutional control’ is all about? Just as companies have internal auditors to review and recommend better controls, that should be part of the compliance job as well.”
Schools are hard-pressed to police outside influences (agents, etc.) or boosters or even employees. That’s why schools should be held most accountable on who they hire. Jeff Capel hired Oronde Taliaferro, so Taliaferro’s crimes are on Capel.
Larry wrote about those who think OU hoops will get off lightly: “I’m pretty sure they are way overconfident that the worst thing that will happen is the loss of scholarships. The NCAA stopped just short of Lack of Institutional Control with Sampson, and I don’t think we’ve yet heard the worst of the money and email trail between a sports agent, an OU coach, and at least one player we know of. All of this while OU is still on probation. I don’t think that the NCAA is concerned about whether Capel knew about any of it or not, is kept or fired. But I do think they are quite interested in sending a strong, painful message to OU, along with all the other schools, that NCAA institutions are responsible to keep this mess from happening over and over again.”
That’s the problem. OU’s repeat offender status is what’s going to make any trip to Indianapolis very harrowing.
Cecil: “Interesting that your article on the OU basketball situation is coupled with an article in the same issue on the USC/Reggie Bush situation (actually more a cesspool). You and I have had polite and gentlemanly disagreements on the NCAA, but I know we both want integrity and a good environment in which to operate college athletics. Here’s where I’m fed up, and I keeping hoping the media will pursue this direction. The NCAA has a myriad of rules that unfortunately stem from lack of integrity and good environments. The unfortunate part of the NCAA system is that most of their rules carry no statutory authority; e.g. the majority of infractions are not illegal and carry no legal consequences. Generally, by the time the NCAA catches the problem, the guilty party (or parties) are long gone, and the only sanction available is to slam non-involved, innocent parties and fans. That sucks and we shouldn’t be content to let it be the status quo. As an athletic donor, I’m supposed to honor NCAA rules that preclude me from giving money, tangible goods, etc., to student athletes. But the NCAA and schools have absolutely no recourse if I do so other than refuse to sell me tickets and return my donation BECAUSE what I have done is perfectly legal. So, if I do these things, why should the university, fans, athletic employees, etc, suffer? Makes no sense at all and it isn’t the American way to punish innocent people. There must be a better way, and I’ll NEVER be an NCAA fan until they start trying to address this problem. I understand how difficult the situation is, but punishing innocent people is not right and cannot be tolerated.”
First off, USC and Reggie Bush are not a bigger cesspool than a coach involved in paying players. As far as we know on the USC deal, Bush was paid by an agent, and the charge against USC is that the Trojans should have known. In the Tiny Gallon deal, OU now DOES know and still can’t get to the bottom of it. And I still don’t buy this NCAA-bashing. The rule is solid; don’t pay players. The rule apparently was violated, by a player recruited by OU and perhaps by a coach hired by OU. How in the world should OU not be held accountable?
Charles: “It’s management’s fault. It’s always management’s fault. Capel either knew or should have known; that’s his job. It’s amazing how little money it takes to bring down a program.”
It is amazing, isn’t it? Just $3,000. Sort of like guys who hold up a liquor store.
