Oklahoma

[Deleted]

Fellas,
I really like this matchup, The Big 12 is grossly overrated with the exception of Kansas. I have respect for Oklahoma but they are plenty beatable on a neutral court.
Two wins and I get to see my beloved Panthers in Minny.

[representforuwm]

Sooners draw No. 6 seed
By John Shinn
CNHI News Service

— Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson thought his team would be no worse than a No. 6 seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket was released Sunday.
He was right.
The Sooners (20-8) were given the sixth slot and will play No. 11 seed Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Jacksonville, Fla., as part of the Minneapolis Regional at Veterans Memorial Arena Thursday.
Some had predicted OU might fall below a No. 6 after its upset loss to Nebraska Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Championship.
The loss was OU’s second straight. But the Sooners were focusing on the future Sunday after they watched the selection show at Lloyd Noble Center.
“We started off the conference year going 0-2 then we came right back and went 11-2. And then we finished the year going 0-2,” Sampson said. “But none of that matters anymore. It’s a clean slate.”
Starting anew is a good way to look at what’s coming up.
Winning at the NCAA Tournament would certainly wash away the disappointment over the way the Sooners finished the regular season and played in the conference tournament.
But advancing out of Jacksonville will be an uphill fight.
The Panthers (21-8, 12-4) won the Horizon League regular season and tournament titles. They will be making their second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and their third in the last four years.
“I watched them play Wisconsin early in the year and it came right down to the buzzer and I thought, ‘Wow, they’ve got a great program there,’” Sampson said. “You can tell the great programs because year in and year out they are consistently good. And UWM is to the point where they are consistently good.”
If OU gets past the Panthers, it would face a huge test in the second round.
Florida is the No. 3 seed and will be playing fairly close to home. The Gators (27-6) won the Southeastern Conference Tournament Sunday and received an automatic bid.
They’ll face No. 14 seed South Alabama (24-6) Thursday.
Sampson said his team’s draw is irrelevant.
“In this tournament you never know,” he said. “In a year when there are no great dominant teams, I think the seed is just a number.”
Villanova, which beat OU 85-74 in December, is the top seed in the Minneapolis Regional. Ohio State is the No. 2 seed. Boston College is the No. 4 seed and Nevada is No. 5. The only way OU would meet any of those teams is to advance to the Sweet 16.
The Sooners are anxious to get started.
“We want to get on the court as quick as we can and get this bad taste out of our mouth,” forward Kevin Bookout said. “I don’t like the taste of losing that much.”
The Sooners were one of four Big 12 teams to receive bids. Texas received a No. 2 seed in the Atlanta Regional. The Longhorns will play their first and second round games at American Airlines Center in Dallas. Kansas, which received the conference’s automatic bid by beating Texas in the Big 12 tournament final Sunday, is the No. 4 seed in the Oakland Regional. The Jayhawks open play in Auburn Hills, Mich.
The Sooners will see some friendly faces in Jacksonville. Texas A&M is the No. 12 seed in the Atlanta Regional. But the Aggies will join Syracuse, LSU and Iona for first and second round games in Jacksonville.
John Shinn366-3536[e-mail]

Copyright © 1999-2005 cnhi, inc.

[uwmsafan]

Anyone happen to catch Sportscenter last night? They did a story about Bruce and selection sunday. Hey seriously thought that if they got a five seed that they would be playing us. It was actually funny too, cause it had Bruce during the selection show joking about how they got screwed out of the number 1 overall seed. And the expression on his face as they announced Tennessee as a 2 seed was priceless. Hey had this bug eyed expression as he said Holy S***.

Just thought it was funny

[Rawls]

Exam...at...1:00...Thursday...WHAT THE f*** KIND OF TEACHER SCHEDULES EXAMS AROUND THE TOURNAMENT??!!

[brewtownbrian]

The biggest worry playing Oklahoma, or any major conference team, is the size differential.

Kevin Bookout and Taj Gray are both really good in the post. Bookout is a load at 6'8-270...I'm assuming AT will match-up against him.

Gray led the team in points per game as well as rebounds per game and checks in at 6'9-240. That'll be a tough match-up for McCoy, giving up almost 50 pounds.

I think Boo will match-up good with any of OU's guards, Chris Hill will be under-sized, but isn't he always.

Similar to last season, Joah will have to have a big game and I think it's entirely possible seeing how OU doesn't seem to have anyone who's a big-time defensive stopper at either the 2G or 3F spot.

On another note, I think UWM's defense has improved greatly under Jeter and that is key in the NCAA's. Defense and rebounding will be essential.

Also, Derrick Ford, Avery Smith and the UWM bench will have to step up big!

No different from most big games this season...

[dylanrocks]

A quick glance (less than a half-hour) at the statistics and rosters reveals this: The Sooners play an eight-man rotation that ranges in size from 6-foot-1 to 6-9 (Taj Gray). The Panthers generally play at least 10 ranging in size from 5-10 to 6-10 (Big D). I could see R.J. extending to 12 depending upon how much he wants to run, Massiah's health, etc. The key battle would appear to be at the point guard, where C-Hill gives away a half-foot to Terrell Everett. Interesting matchup: Both are seniors. Chris averages 7.9 ppg to Terrell's 12.4 and Chris averages 2.8 assists to Terrell's 6.8. However, the OU point guard coughs up the ball an average of 4.0 times per game (to C-Hill's 1.8), suggesting that he might be greatly susceptible to pressure. IMHO, keeping the ball out of his hands and rotating defenders on Terrell could very well be the key to this game.

[uwmbacker24]

I think AVO might get more time than Hill, he is a better on the ball defender and he is 6-3. The only difference being that Hill has better ball handling skills and a better jump shot but I think that AVO has more of a slasher in him and he can make unbelievable plays. Look for AVO to shut down Everett

[billhaverchuck]

I posted this on another thread but figured it might be more relevant and get more looks in this one. Thanks...

The OU UWM match-up it is not one I am very fond of, but when you are a team that has underachieved all year as we have done I guess that is what you get when you play your way into a 6 seed.

UWM should prove a tough challenge for our Sooners. I watched both of your tourney games last year and saw UWM on TV a couple times this year and you guys look every bit as good but you don't need me to tell you about your own team.

As for OU fans I noticed on another thread where someone was already talking about how many OU fans are giving up and expect to lose. Well you have to know when you have a big, high major program like we have at Oklahoma you are going to have alot of negative fans. Because of how good our football program is we have quite an interesting fan base at OU when it comes to basketball. Billy Tubbs had a 5+ year run at OU in the 80s where OU was about as good as any program in the nation. We lost to KU and Danny and the Miracles in the 88 championship after beating them twice that year. Many teams feel that was the most talented team to not win a title. Anyway, my point is after Billy wore out his welcome and Kelvin came to town in 94, there was such a drastic style change that many OU fans have never grown to appreciate Kelvin Sampson.

OU has been one of the top 10 programs in college basketball this decade. We have a top 10 winning % and have gone to the Elite 8 and Final 4 in 03 and 02. We won the Big 12 regular season last year and were a 3 seed but got ousted by Utah in the 2nd rd. We returned 3 key SR's in Everett, Bookout and Gray, but Lawrence McKenzie and Drew Lavender who were both starters most of the year transferred to Minnesota and Xavier respectively.

Even with those losses most of the media and OU fans felt what we had coming in to replace them would more than make up for it. OU was a pre-season top 5 team by most publications but this has been a frustrating season where it just seems like they have not been able to put it all together.

Michael Neal has been the one newcomer who was as advertised. He was a 2 time NJCAA All American at Lon Morris JR College in Texas and he was the Big 12 Pre-Season Newcomer of the Year and ended up winning the actual Pre-Season Big 12 NCOTY award and was 3rd team all conference in a conference with a ton of great guards. He might be the best 3 pt shooter in the nation not named JJ Redick. For the season he hit 86 3 pointers for 43%. However he battled some injuries up until after the first 2 conference games which he missed. In the 14 conference games he played he hit 54 3's at 49.5%. He is a deadly shooter who works really hard to get open and can put it on the floor and hit a pull up jumper too. Teams have really gone after him hard recently, Nebraska even played some box and one against him and held him to 6 pts. Most of the season teams focused on Bookout and Gray, but in the last 10 games or so as Neal has become the focal point of the offense, more teams have face guarded him, switched on screens, and thrown about every junk defense you can come up with because he is OU's only lethal 3 pt shooter. If only McKenzie had stayed because he was the 2nd best 3 pt shooter in the Big 12 last year.

Anyway, I would imagine UWM will continue a similar pattern defensively because it seems to have worked for teams recently.

However that can lead a team to being susceptible to Gray and or Bookout having big games. Taj Gray was the pre-season Big 12 POY, but ended up only being 2nd team All Big 12 after being 1st team last year as a JR. He is very athletic for a college big man, runs the floor well and can finish with authority. However he also can struggle in the paint against big bodies and tends to try and do too much sometimes and can turn the ball over. He actually was better last year IMO, he was inconsistent but had more big games. When we played Duke last year he tore up Sheldon Williams so much that Coach K put the undersized Reggie Love on him and Love actually stopped him. So as you see Taj can be a bit of an enigma.

With Bookout he has great touch around the basket but has some nagging injuries that have hampered him. How he plays usually depends on how many touches he gets.

We are all hoping our 3 seniors will wake up and play up to expectations, but it remains to be seen. OU fans are frustrated right now because of the pre-season hype and not living up to it, but we would not be the first underachieving experienced team to get hot in the tournament so that gives us hope.

Terrell Everett is who makes us go. If you can slow him down and force him to try and do too much you will win. If he plays smart he is awesome and can go for 15-20 pts, 10+assists and several steals, but if he gets rattled he starts trying to do too much and will have 5-7 turnovers. If he plays like he is capable of and Bookout and Gray are tough inside, and Neal is getting open hitting 3's and we get some contributions from Godbold, Carter, Johnson and Griffin this team can put together a string of wins. Problem is, those things have not all come together very often this year. One guy has a good game then the next game it is someone else, but very rarely have they all contributed positively.

Anyway that is pretty much the state of this OU team. Sorry for the long post but I figured someone might want a good in depth look at the Sooners.

[brewtownbrian]

uwmbacker24 said:

I think AVO might get more time than Hill, he is a better on the ball defender and he is 6-3. The only difference being that Hill has better ball handling skills and a better jump shot but I think that AVO has more of a slasher in him and he can make unbelievable plays. Look for AVO to shut down Everett

I agree...kind of. Avo won't play at the point more than Hill, but I can see a line-up of PG-Hill, SG-Avo, SF-Boo, PF-Joah and AT(or Big D) at the Center spot.

I do think Avo will be key because of his size(mentioned as 6'3) and his good on ball, one-on-one defense.

It will be a matter of UWM holding court in the post with a smaller line-up, if it plays out this way.

[Pantherholic]

thanks for the update bill, i didn't know a lot about OU this year besides they seemed to have underachieved this year. hopefully i can go to the game but whoever wins between us is who i'll be rooting for in the 2nd round b/c seriously, f*** Florida.

[uwm97]

Joah is going to have to step out to the perimeter and take his guy off the dribble. He's simply not big enough to post up a 6'8", 270 pound man. I also think we may have to go zone because if Brandon Polk is dominating us in the post in man to man, Gray and Bookout will eat us for lunch.

[uwmbacker24]

Digger Phelps just picked Oklahoma to beat us, I did like him but now I think he needs to stop having his highlighter match his tie.

[dylanrocks]

Two things: 1, Why did you ever like Digger? He had Florida State, Michigan, Maryland and quite possibly Oklahoma State in his tournament field. Anyone but a mid-major, right? 2, A.T. will be matched up on Bookout (6-8, 270), right? The roster I've got has Taj Gray at 6-9, 235. How big was Kennedy Winston? Taj has reach on Joah, not bulk.

[damasa]

If we zone them they will struggle. Zone the fack out of them....

[aknowsense]

I look for OU to play zone defense based on scouting UWM and also w/the matchup since OU is not really long but big and wide, I as a coach (from the couch) would not want a 6'8 270 pounder trying to play to much perimeter defense. Not right away at least, also w/the pace of this game being uptempo tired legs may come into play as it does w/alot of big men. I think hitting outside shots will force them to play str8 up and perhaps even make them go w/a leaner lineup to match quickness. Tigert will need to use his range to open things up down low as well. McCoy and Ford need big games not scoring but causing problems they are not wide but can play big as well. Based on the post from bill this may cause problems for Grey. Both teams seem to have great rebounding advantages in most of their games so I look foward to see who wins that battle. I think this will be a heck of a game winnable but not a given, I like the way UWM has played in the last couple games and I think it's been the best ball they've played all year which is nice.

Also I look foward to seeing the full on balls to the wall press aka vs. Detroit it has been something that RJ has used sparingly IMO all year but I have a feeling that he will open it up for real come game time.

Thursday can't come fast enough.