LB Corey Nelson says he’ll be an Aggie
Despite reports, 4-star outside linebacker Corey Nelson (Dallas Skyline High School) says he remains committed to Texas A&M and will sign with the Aggies.
Nelson told TexAgs.com via text, “I’m not committed to OU and I will remain an Aggie. It’s my future. Report that please. Tell everyone I’m through with recruiting and I will remain at A&M. It’s my future.”
Thursday night, OUInsider.com reported that Nelson had committed to OU. It’s unclear if Nelson temporarily changed his mind or never changed his commitment in the first place.
Despite being committed to A&M for months, Nelson took an official visit to Norman last weekend. The Sooners were confident enough in their chances that defensive coordinator Brent Venables followed that up with an in-home visit.
But Nelson apparently has decided to stick with the Aggies, though this one may not be over until he signs on the dotted line Wednesday.
Nelson is rated the No. 12 outside linebacker in the country by Rivals.com.
* In other news, Texas picked up a pair of 5-star verbals Friday. The first was defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat, who announced he would be signing with Texas over OU and Houston.
Later in the day, West Chester Lakota West (Ohio) linebacker Jordan Hicks, the No. 1 outside linebacker in the country, also revealed he had committed to Texas over Ohio State and Florida.
-JT
Jackson Jeffcoat picks Texas
Defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat, the No. 2 overall recruit in the country according to ESNPU, announced Friday morning that he will sign with Texas.
Jeffcoat had narrowed down his finalists to Texas, Oklahoma and Houston, where his dad is the defensive line coach.
The Sooners brought Jeffcoat in for an official visit over the weekend, and felt good about their chances, since his twin sister, Jacqueline, is scheduled to arrive in Norman in the fall to play for the OU women’s basketball team.
OU coach Bob Stoops and defensive line coach Jackie Shipp followed up Jeffcoat’s official visit by visiting his home in Plano (Texas) West this week.
The Sooners are still hoping to land at least one more player to their 2010 recruiting class, which already has 29 verbal commitments.
The most likely candidate at this point is Dallas Skyline linebacker Corey Nelson, who has been committed to Texas A&M for months, but visited OU along with Jeffcoat last weekend and is giving the Sooners a hard look.
-JT
Jeffcoat to commit 10 a.m. Friday
Plano West senior defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat – the No. 2 prospect in the country according to ESPN – will announce his college destination Friday at 10 a.m.
Jeffcoat was planning to announce his final decision Sunday night on a Dallas TV station, but his father, Jim Jeffcoat, told the Dallas Morning News that’s no longer the plan.
Earlier this week, Jackson eliminated Arizona State — where his dad played college football — from his finalists, and is now only considering Oklahoma, Texas and Houston.
-JT
Chat with David Ubben at 11 a.m.
OU 89, Iowa State 84: TMG, Shooting the 3 and Craig Brackins
When Tommy-Mason Griffin is hitting his shot with consistency, he’s close to unguardable. When its falling almost every time it goes up, like last night, defenses just don’t have a chance. Before the game against Texas Tech, Mason-Griffin told Willie Warren he was going for 30. He just missed, with a then-career-high 26 points. With Crocker out, 30 points was a modest estimate when he shoots it like he did last night.
He can create space, most often with his jab step and pull up, and the elevation on his jumper makes his lack of height a non-factor on offense. So far this season, I don’t think he’s even come close to getting a jumper blocked. Defensively, he’s still not fantastic, but he’s probably shown as much improvement as any one else on the team.
On Tuesday, Warren compared him to Jameer Nelson. Definitely apt.
Who knows what’s in the 5-11 Mason-Griffin’s future? But 10 or so NBA scouts watched last night’s game, and I’m sure Warren isn’t the only one who saw the similarities. Nelson, at 6-0, developed into an All-Star in just five seasons.
As a senior at St. Joseph’s, Nelson won the Wooden and Naismith Awards scoring 20.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists, three steals and shot just under 40 percent from 3-point range.
I’m not going to get carried away with what’s basically just three games where he’s looked like the best player on the floor. But in the seasons that follow, does anyone think it’s THAT outlandish that Mason-Griffin could average near the same?
- Oklahoma finally got some threes to drop in the first half, but they cooled off considerably toward the end of the game. Hitting eight of their first 11 gave them confidence everywhere else on the floor, but when they stopped dropping, Iowa State started chipping away at the lead. The Sooners finished 3-of-15 to shoot 11-of-26 from three for the game. It’ll be interesting to see how they shoot it on Saturday at Nebraska.
- Iowa State’s Craig Brackins probably lost some money by coming back. He passes the eye test better than almost any other player in college basketball, but his production has dropped almost five points and two rebounds. Marquis Gilstrap’s arrival is part of that, and Brackins’ assists are up, but games like last night show why he’ll have some growing up/toughening up to do once he gets in The League.
Ryan Wright defended him pretty well, but NBA defenders are going to be a liiiiiittle better. Even when Andrew Fitzgerald was on him, he never tried to dominate. He settled for jumpers instead of banging down low and getting himself a short jump hook and taking advantage of his touch around the goal, which might be better than any big man in college basketball.
Brackins might have been a lottery pick last season. With guys like Kentucky’s DeMarcus Cousins, Kansas’ Cole Aldrich and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe possibly in this year’s class, its going to take a lot for him to do that now.
- Mason-Griffin is playing a lot of minutes, and if he can keep this up with any consistency, it’s only going to make it more impressive. He sat one minute against Texas A&M, and played 43 minutes in an overtime win over Oklahoma State. He sat the first half against Baylor, but in the five games since, he’s played 202 minutes. That’s a lot. But the way he’s playing, the Sooners need it.
He expels a lot of energy with his jumpshot, and on nights like last night, cramps (both calves and his right hamstring) aren’t very surprising. I’m just surprised he never looks like he’s losing his legs on his shot.
Warren’s NBA stock? Polarizing.
Warren's become one of the most polarizing prospects in the upcoming NBA Draft.
Wall is a Blake Griffin-esque lock to be the No. 1 pick, but here’s what one NBA exec told Thomsen about Warren:
“If a team needs a big, they’ll take Aldrich; if they need a point guard, they’ll take Willie Warren,” an executive said. Though Warren is listed as a shooting guard for Oklahoma, he has the potential to shift to the point in the NBA. “He is talented, he’s quick, he can shoot it, and I think he can be a ’1.’ If he was in last year’s draft with all of those point guards, I don’t think he would be rated this high. But this year, after John Wall [and potentially Evan Turner], there is no other point guard. So he is going to benefit from the timing of the draft.
“But I will say,” continued this exec, “a lot of [NBA] guys are down on Warren because of questions about character. [Oklahoma coach Jeff] Capel benched him one game this year and, instead of saying he had a headache or he’d banged his knee in practice, he chose not to explain it. Obviously there’s some friction there, and the team is not as good without Blake Griffin. But Warren is a talented guy and, at the very least, he’s going to be a top-10 pick.”
For the record, Warren said he was held out because he didn’t practice on the Sooners’ off day before beating winless Nicholls State in the fifth-place game of the Great Alaska Shootout.
NBADraft.net projects Warren as the No. 20 pick to the (ha!) Oklahoma City Thunder, where he’d join former VCU guard Eric Maynor, who has Capel’s fingerprints all over his game as well.
The Thunder won’t be drafting another athletic 1 or 2, but plenty of NBA teams will, and Warren is becoming one of the more polarizing prospects in the upcoming draft. (All this, of course, assuming he leaves.)
The dividing line among his national perception appears to be clear. NBA writers and execs are singing the sophomore’s praises. Those who get paid to watch college basketball say they don’t see it.
Today, rather harshly, I might add, Seth Davis shot back at Thomsen:
• I saw my colleague Ian Thomsen quoted some NBA scouts pegging Oklahoma guard Willie Warren as high as No. 4 in this year’s draft. That truly boggles the mind. Warren is barely looking like a pro right now, much less a top-five pick. I suggest those scouts DVR a couple of Sooners games before recommending to their bosses that they make that investment.
Personally, I don’t think anything he does at OU short of an off-court incident will make his stock drop past the first round. A dynamite second half of the season might make it skyrocket.
There’s no way to know what kind of NBA player Warren will be, but that won’t stop people from debating it from now until June.
(Or maybe next June?)
Follow me on Twitter: @DavidUbben
Former OU commit Loften recommits elsewhere
Eddrick Loften, a safety from Irving, Texas, who was once committed to Oklahoma, pledged to the Volunteers on Saturday.
“I like (new Tennessee coach Derek) Dooley a lot,” Loften told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “He’s a cool guy … a real straightforward kind of guy. He wants to really change the program and turn it around, and he wants guys like me to help him do it.
“I really liked what he was talking about.”
The 5-foot-10, 195-pound Loften committed to OU last February, but decommitted in December as Loften and OU mutually parted ways.
Rivals ranks Loften as the No. 14 safety in the country.
The Sooners, however, have five other defensive backs (Aaron Colvin, Tony Jefferson, James Haynes, Julian Wilson and Quentin Hayes) committed from this class.
-JT
Texas Tech 75, OU 65: On close losses, TMG, and a Pledger apology
Oklahoma already dug itself a hole with five non-conference losses.
Losing close games like this, especially in winnable road games, only digs that hole deeper.
Two games ago, an NCAA Tournament berth looked like somewhat of a possibility. After an 0-2 road trip, that window is slowly closing. I can’t imagine there’s going to be a lot of conversation on the flight back to Oklahoma City.
Why Oklahoma has executed so poorly late in close games is a mystery. They didn’t have a field goal in the last 3:49 of tonight’s game, and didn’t have one in the last 3:45 of Tuesday’s loss. Good luck winning many games in conference doing that. That’d be tough for any team.
- Oklahoma’s best offense for most of the game was Tony Crocker and Tommy Mason-Griffin taking their man 1-on-1, and either trying to score or dishing. Down the stretch, that meant forcing a few shots because the Sooners’ big men weren’t able to handle passes down low. When easy dunks and/or layups become turnovers, that’s frustrating for guards, and they’ll start to stop dishing it, if only for the rest of the game. It looked like that definitely happened after Tiny Gallon and Ryan Wright couldn’t convert from close to the basket, fumbling at least a few passes.
With Willie Warren on the bench, and no post presence to speak of, 36 shots combined for Mason-Griffin and Crocker is just fine.
- We ran this story on Dec. 17 about Steven Pledger and his penchant for the trey ball.
Since it ran, he’s 7-for-40 (17 percent) from 3-point range. Whoops. Sorry about that.
He at least looked somewhat comfortable on Saturday, more so than he did against Texas A&M. Still didn’t knock down a shot. Not much else to do but keep shooting when he gets a good look.
- There’s no such thing as an easy road win in the Big 12, but some are certainly easier than others. Texas Tech would be one of those. Oklahoma needed this win badly, and didn’t get it. They have two more games (Nebraska and Colorado) where they’ll have another good shot at getting a win. Can’t repeat this performance and think they’ll leave Lincoln or Boulder with a win.
Manny Johnson retained by Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys announced Friday they have signed former OU wide receiver Manny Johnson to their reserve/future list. Johnson spent the entire 2009 season on the club’s practice squad.
-JT
Minnesota hires offensive coordinator
Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster is hiring Detroit Lions QB coach Jeff Horton to be the Gophers’ offensive coordinator, Rivals’ Tom Dienhart is reporting.
That should eliminate any remnants of OU QB coach Josh Heupel-going-to-Minnesota chatter.
-JT
Follow Jake Trotter on Twitter: @Jake_Trotter.
