Thunder a popular distraction at Final Four
Thunder guard Russell Westbrook dunks over Chicago center Omer Asik during Sunday's 92-78 home victory over the Bulls.
To say Sunday’s game between the Thunder and Chicago created a buzz at the Final Four in New Orleans would be vastly overstating it, but there was at least a murmur.
Fans who attend the Final Four have such tunnel vision toward college hoops that the rest of the sports world pretty much ceases to exist until their champion is crowned. Nothing is more important than the event they’re at. Major league baseball’s opening day doesn’t register. The Masters will have to wait until later in the week. As for the NBA, that championship won’t be determined until June.
But several fans opened their minds on Sunday. Around 5 p.m., a bar called “The Beach” on Bourbon Street was packed with college hoop fans. The music was loud. The drinks were flowing. Didn’t matter it was an off day before Monday night’s title game between Kentucky and Kansas. In addition to Final Four supporters from UK, KU, Ohio State and Louisville, there were fans from various participants in this year’s bracket — North Carolina, Duke, Indiana, Florida, Florida State, even Ohio.
Everything in sight and everything within ear shot was about college hoops. Then flat-screen televisions above the bar area started showing a recap of the Thunder’s 92-78 victory over the Bulls at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Five Louisville students decked out in Final Four gear suddenly stopped sipping their drinks and bouncing to the beat as they watched a package of Thunder highlights. First came Kevin Durant raining in jumpers. Then came Russell Westbrook scoring inside and out. That was followed by Westbrook’s perfectly thrown two-hand flick pass from halfcourt on an ally-oop to Durant.
The Louisville Five shook their heads on the ally-oop, but when Westbrook threw down a dunk over 7-foot, 280-pound Chicago center Omer Asik, those fans simultaneously turned and looked at each other while screaming their delight. Two guys got so excited, their lost their hats. High-fives quickly ensued. Others watching the highlights pretty much had the same reaction, as did the bartender when he stopped serving, looked over shoulder and saw several slow-motion replays of Westbrook’s dunk.
New Orleans is a town filled with, shall we say, distractions. Sunday afternoon on Bourbon Street, one of the bigger distrations were Thunder highlights.
Thunder players familiar with the Final Four squads
Several Thunder players are familiar with this year’s Final Four participants, having actually competed against them during the NBA lockout last summer.
Nick Collison and Cole Aldrich spent the offseason in Lawrence and frequently played in pickup games with Kansas players.
Nazr Mohammed played at Kentucky and set up one of the Thunder’s voluntary mini-camps this summer on the campus in Lexington.
Kansas, Kentucky, OhioState and Louisville are in this weekend’s Final Four at New Orleans. Kentucky and Louisville meet in Saturday’s first national semifinal at the Superdome, while Kansas and Ohio State meet in the other semifinal. The winners will play for the title on Monday night.
Daequan Cook attended Ohio State for one season before going pro, but rather than spending last summer in Ohio, Cook spent much of his time working out in Oklahoma City to show his desire to re-sign with the Thunder as a restricted free agent.
More than half the OKC roster participated at the Kentuckycamp. The Wildcats are 36-2 and spent much of the season ranked No. 1. For them to advance to the Final Four came as no surprise to Thunder players.
“We were all thinking, ‘They’re pretty good,’ ” said two-time All-Star Russell Westbrook. “All of ‘em are going to be pros. They’re a good team, so they’re going to be all right (at the Final Four). … It was no mystery they were going to be good.”
Mohammed envisioned a big season for his alma mater. “Oh, definitely,” Mohammed said.
NBA two-time scoring champ Kevin Durant saw the same. “Oh, yeah. I did,” Durant said. “I called it. Everybody on our team said they’re the best team in the country. They have five pros on their team. Their sixth man is a pro also. They’re really, really good, man. Being there for a week, we got close to those guys. You talk to them and you pull for them that hopefully they win the championship. Coach Cal (John Calipari) is a great guy. Their whole staff is good. Hopefully they win. They respected us. They came out and competed against us. You could tell they were going to be really good this year.”
Every Thunder player who discussed the Wildcats was quick to mention national player-of-the-year candidate Anthony Davis, who is a lock for the Wayman Tisdale Award as the nation’s top freshman. “Anthony Davis stood out,” Mohammed said. “He’s just such a good kid, worked hard, was trying to find as much knowledge as he could. Terrence Jones, all the guys were good. The surprising part was they were such a tight-knit group for guys who just had met, so that definitely was a good sign.”
It was never the Thunder vs. Kentucky in Lexington. It was always mix and match. Mohammed said at one point there were two courts of 5-on-5 going on side-by-side. “I was really impressed with their talent,” Collison said of Kentucky. “Anthony Davis, when I saw him, I knew he was going to be really good. Yeah, they’ve got a ton of talent, for sure. They were really talented and that was their first couple weeks on campus, too. I’m sure they’ve gotten a lot better since then.”
The same success wasn’t envisioned for Collison’s alma mater, which lost roughly 70 percent of its scoring, rebounding and assists and nearly 80 percent of its 3-pointers off the previous year’s team and still managed to win its eighth straight Big 12 regular-season title.
“Honestly, they’ve really impressed me, man. They’ve overachieved a lot,” Collison said. “This is probably one of the least-talented teams they’ve had in a long time in terms of depth, the number of guys, but the players have done a great job. Guys who didn’t much at all last year really stepped up. … I’m really impressed. They’ve had an unbelievable year. They’ve got a lot of walk-ons playing quality minutes. That’s not always the case atKansas, but those guys have really stepped up and played great. It’s been fun to watch.”
Aldrich smiled and shook his head when asked how he thought this year’s Jayhawks would fare after facing them throughout the summer. “Nick and I kind of joke about it,” Aldrich said. “We were like, ‘Uh, I don’t know about this.’ We thought they’d make the (NCAA) tournament, but we were unsure of how far they would go. To see them in the Final Four, I think huge credit goes out to coach (Bill) Self, not only for getting those guys prepared for the season, but for the guys themselves, for working hard and getting better throughout the season. It shows that a team you think may not have a good year has a great year.”
Mohammed advanced to the national championship game all three seasons atUK, winning the title as a freshman in 1996 and as a junior in 1998, after which he turned pro. Collison made it to the 2002 and 2003 Final Fours, losing the national title game to Syracuse and freshman Carmelo Anthony in 2003, when Collision had 19 points and 21 rebounds. Aldrich was a freshman on the 2008 national championship team at Kansas. Cook and fellow OSU freshmen Greg Oden and Michael Conley turned pro after losing in the 2007 national championship game against Florida.
NCAA bracket alive and well in Thunder locker room
Thunder point guard Eric Maynor at Virginia Commonwealth. (AP photo)
The Thunder has the NBA’s third-youngest roster and its second-youngest starting lineup. Several players should still be in college, or are not that far removed from college.
Of the Thunder’s 14 roster players, only three attended college for four years — Nick Collison (Kansas), Royal Ivey (Texas) and Eric Maynor (Virginia Commonwealth).
This youth certainly is evident inside the Thunder locker room in March during the NCAA Tournament. Four Thunder players are No. 1 seeds in Daequan Cook and Byron Mullens (Ohio State), plus Cole Aldrich and Collison (Kansas).
Ohio State faces Nazr Mohammed’s No. 4-seeded Kentucky team on Friday in Newark. Cook playfully suggested he and Mohammed might not pass to each other Wednesday (Utah) or Friday (Minnesota) because of that game. KU plays Richmond in San Antonio on Friday and potentially could face Maynor for a berth to the Final Four on Sunday.
Kevin Durant and Ivey were underseeded at No. 4 and Texas suffered a painful 70-69 loss to Arizona in large part due to a questionable five-second violation against the Longhorns on an in-bound play, which still has Durant shaking his head. Russell Westbrook’s No. 7-seeded UCLA team ousted Michigan State in the opening round, but couldn’t survived Florida. Nate Robinson’s No. 7-seeded Washington Huskies could have, and probably should have, beaten No. 2 North Carolina, but wilted down the stretch.
No one is puffing out his chest more than the 175-pound Maynor, who was recruited to VCU by former Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel. Maynor is a No. 11 seed who many inside (and outside) the locker room believed didn’t deserve a tournament berth. Instead, VCU is two wins away from advancing from the so-called First Four (play-in games) to the Final Four. The Rams have beaten teams by an average of 16.3 points — Southern Cal by 13; Georgetown by 18; and Purdue by 18.
Each time VCU has a game, someone from the other side of the locker room (usually Cook) tells Maynor to enjoy his last game of the season. “You’ve been saying that for three games now,” Maynor said.
The only player on the Thunder roster from a school that didn’t qualify for the tournament is Arizona State’s James Harden.
