'09, Best team ever? -or- A Stroll Down Memory Lane

[8timechamps]

Okay my Sooner basketball brethren, we are on the edge of greatness. This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest seasons in Sooner basketball history.

I started to think about how this team matches up to teams of old. A thought crept into my head that maybe this is the best team ever.

But then I thought, “at least wait until the tournament is played”!

Until we know, I decided to look into the history a bit more, just to see where this team might rank. Of course, the entire season (at least how this team will be remembered historically) will probably hinge on how they finish.

Right off the top of my head, I think back to what I’ve always considered the greatest Sooner team, the 1988 squad. That team (as we all know) finished in a heartbreaking loss to the KU Avian Flu (sorry 04). However, I still consider that the greatest team.

1988 Sooners

Notable Players
10 Mookie Blaylock (my all time favorite Sooner)
14 Ricky Grace (shot almost 250 3s in ’88!)
24 Terrence Mullins (only started a couple of games in ’88)
25 Harvey Grant (I’ll always believe he was better than his brother :D )
33 Stacy King (in 1989, I thought he was going to be the next MJ. In ’90, not so much)
34 Dave Sieger (I got chill bumps thinking about his clutch threes)
50 Tony “Hawk” Martin (only started 2 games in ’88, but ended up being fun to watch)

I probably could have listed the entire roster, but those are the ones I remember the most.


Final Record: 35-4
Conference Record: 12-2 (losses @ KSU and @ Mizzou in overtime)
Conference Tournament Result: Big 8 Champions (Defeated KSU 88-83 in final game)

1988 NCAA Tournament Run
Round 1: Defeated UT-Chattanooga 94-66 in Atlanta
Round 2: Defeated Auburn 107-87 in Atlanta
Sweet Sixteen: Defeated Louisville 108- 98 in Birmingham
Elite Eight: Defeated Villanova 78-59 in Birmingham
Final Four: Defeated Arizona 86-78 in Kansas City
Championship: Lost to Kansas 83-79 in Kansas City

I think what killed me (and everyone else) was the final loss to KU. I think what made it so bad was losing to them in the title game after beating them twice in conference play. Like many other milestones in Sooner sports history, I can remember where I was during the game (unfortunately, I was not at Kemper). As much as it ended in heartbreak, the ’88 team was a great team and so much fun to watch.

There have been some awesome teams over the years;

2005 – Taj Grey, Kevin Bookout, (Pre-Xavier) Lavender, Crushing Niagara in the tourney only to lose to Utah in the second round.
2003 – Ebi, Bookout as a frosh, getting beat by the eventual national champs and Melo.
2002 – Selvy, Price, and losing to Mike Davis in Atlanta.
1990 – Skeeter ‘Meter’, The Hawk, losing to friggin’ NC (Damn you Rick Fox!)
1989 – Mookie’s senior year and losing to Virginia.
1985 – Second best team on my list. Wayman, losing @ Tulsa and beating LaTech in OT in the tourny.

In the end, I just don’t think they can claim the top spot.

Over the next month and a half, we’ll see where the 2009 Sooners end up on the list. They could knock Stacey and the gang out of the top seat…or, they could join the ’84 Sooners.

With all due respect Stacey, I hope you drop a notch come April.

[8timechamps]

Whoops, meant to put this on the Bball forum.

Can one of you Mods move it?

[King Crimson]

Mike Davis was the coach of 02 Indiana.

85 lost to Memphis State with Keith Lee and Andre Turner in the Elite Eight.

i'd go:

1988
2002
1990
1985

then a margin to the other teams. too early with this club to know.

[soonervegas]

Well while we are here....

I thought both the 1988 team and the 2002 were the BEST teams in the country heading into the tournament, I do not feel that this team merits that distinction. I do think this team will at least get to the elite eight. If so, I rank them 4th in the modern era behind:

1988
2002
1985

With all that being said, I will not be the least bit surprised if this team end up at #1 on my list and there is only 1 way to do that.....

[KC//CRIMSON]

2002 – Selvy, Price, and losing to The General in Atlanta.

That sucked out loud. We steamroll the BIG12 Tourney, play like dragon slayers in the first four rounds and then lose to that *hit team we should have destroyed. UGH!!

Who was the General?

1988
2002
1985
Everyone else

[King Crimson]

Well while we are here....

I thought both the 1988 team and the 2002 were the BEST teams in the country heading into the tournament.

you could say that about 1990 too. they blew the conference apart the second half and were the number 1 overall seed.

[8timechamps]

Mike Davis was the coach of 02 Indiana.

Doh! I don't think I even realized that (I'm sure I did at the time...I'm not that stoopid).




85 lost to Memphis State with Keith Lee and Andre Turner in the Elite Eight.


I was refering to the overtime win (against LaTech) in the Sweet Sixteen. I didn't want to bring up the loss :mad:



i'd go:

1988
2002
1990
1985

then a margin to the other teams. too early with this club to know.

Wow, you put the '02 and '90 team over the '85 squad. I can see the '02 team being up there. They just didn't play to their potential when it mattered. As for the 1990 team, It's too much of a blur to me:mad:

[8timechamps]

I rank them 4th in the modern era...



I've been a Sooner hoops fan since the 70's, so I was surprised to find how bad/mediocre the Sooner hoops teams were prior.

[King Crimson]

Wow, you put the '02 and '90 team over the '85 squad. I can see the '02 team being up there. They just didn't play to their potential when it mattered. As for the 1990 team, It's too much of a blur to me:mad:

i was "believing" in the 1990 team at the time...so maybe i overestimate that. beating Memphis State and making the Final Four in 85 would have been *unbelievable* for the program (and for Billy, he used to get ripped endlessly by the basketball media for "not playing defense" and some other things involving too many juco's which to the blue blood schools so beloved by commentators wasn't too far from being a bit racially motivated when it came to "style of play". it wasn't considered "thinking man's basketball", as it were. dunking wasn't "tasteful and proper" for the college game).

02 i put there on results. i do think, as far as the field at large in their year, 1990 was a juggernaut waiting to happen that caught an unlucky draw to play an underachieving Dean Smith team in (of all places) Austin, Texas.

[8timechamps]

i was "believing" in the 1990 team at the time...so maybe i overestimate that. beating Memphis State and making the Final Four in 85 would have been *unbelievable* for the program (and for Billy, he used to get ripped endlessly by the basketball media for "not playing defense" and some other things involving too many juco's which to the blue blood schools so beloved by commentators wasn't too far from being a bit racially motivated when it came to "style of play". it wasn't considered "thinking man's basketball", as it were. dunking wasn't "tasteful and proper" for the college game).

02 i put there on results. i do think, as far as the field at large in their year, 1990 was a juggernaut waiting to happen that caught an unlucky draw to play an underachieving Dean Smith team in (of all places) Austin, Texas.


I would have bet my house that the '90 team was at least going to the Final Four. If I think about it too much, I can put myself in the exact same state of anger/mourning/denial I was in after Fox took that inboud pass and scored.

[soonervegas]

King to your point 1990 may have been the most disappointed I have ever been as a sooner fan. At least the 1988 and 2002 made it the the final four before they lost to an inferior opponent.

[8timechamps]

King to your point 1990 may have been the most disappointed I have ever been as a sooner fan.

I agree 1000%

It's number one by a wide margin.

[Readyfor8]

It's funny OU basketball has a lot of almost teams when I think about it. The only way this team is going to be better than 88 is if it wins the championship. They will have to retire 23 all over again for Blake and I honestly see in him a Hall of Fame guy at the next level, and I think he has done right by his number because I think Griffin may be better than Wayman.

So that would give this team a POY Naismith, Hall of fame, but you had 3 NBA carreer guys on the 88 Team. Those 88 guards would have shredded this team I think.

Here is a good comparison for this team and that, who would you rather have on the sideline, Capel or Tubbs? I think if you wanted to win a championship I would rather have Capel, and in the end that will be what makes this team our best is if they win the championship.

With a lot of luck, we could get a reeling UCONN or the team that defeated them and not have to face Pitt or UNC until the final. It could be that small, as to whether this team finishes ahead of that one in the end.

[JLEW1818]

let ya know in early April!!!

[Sooner04]

The only way the '09 team becomes the greatest team ever is if they win a national championship. The '88 team was THE runaway locomotive. All five starters averaged double figures:

Stacey King: 22.3
Harvey Grant: 20.9
Mookie Blaylock: 16.4
Ricky Grace: 14.3
Dave Sieger: 10.9

That's nearly 85 points a game from your starters. Incredible. As a team, our '88 Sooners averaged 102.9 points a game with a 45 second shot clock. Mookie Blaylock had 150 steals on the season BY HIMSELF. Stacey King blocked 103 shots. Ricky Grace chimed in with 280 assists (double digits nine times). All three are still school records.

We outscored our opponents by an average of 103-81. 22 points a pop. The Big 8 Conference that year was really good. OU and Kansas played for the national championship. K-State lost to Kansas in the Elite 8. Missouri and Iowa State both made the Tournament as well. We went 12-2 in the league and outscored our opponents there 99-84. Blitzing your league opponents by 15 a night is unheard of.

To get to Kansas City, we breezed through four teams (Chattanooga, Auburn, Louisville and Villanova) to a clip of 97-78. Other than UNLV's championship run in '90, no team has ever scored more points in the NCAA Tournament than the '88 squad.

The 2009 team has scored 100 points once. The '88 team averaged 103, and topped the century mark 20 times.

The 2009 team has four wins of 15 points or more in conference play. The '88 team defeated eight of their 14 opponents by more than 15.

This team was never ranked #1, but that was a perception of ignorance. Temple spent a large chunk of the season #1 and they didn't make the Final Four. Arizona was seen as the team to beat in Kansas City, and they too met their demise at the hands of our '88 squad. For our '88 Sooners not to have a national championship banner hanging inside the Lloyd Noble Center is incredibly sad. They were the best team in the country and one of the better teams in the history of college basketball. They just had the hideous misfortune of running into a team who couldn't miss and who had the luxury of playing for a national championship 30 miles from their college lawn.

We may win a national championship, but I doubt we'll ever see another team as good as the '88 squad here at Oklahoma.

[Pricetag]

Very well put. We could win 10 national championships, but it still wouldn't heal the hurt from 1988. It just shouldn't have gone down that way.

[Sooner04]

I remember watching the very end of the game in my room and not really understanding the significance. Then I walked down the hallway to the kitchen to get something to drink before going to bed but I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. I walked past my parent's bedroom and saw my mom, eight months pregnant with my little sister, sitting on the bed........crying.

When I was a little kid we went to BBall games religiously. Mom still talks about how pissed she was that ice kept us from going to the UNLV game in '87. She was a huge fan. I bet she hasn't gone to 15 games since that '88 game. She can't even watch them on TV any more.

That game was some serious hurt for my family. My best OU buddy in the world, Sooner24, skipped out on going to the '94 CWS and the '02 Final Four because he was in Kemper in '88, and he couldn't bear the thought of experiencing that feeling again.

In '02, the stars were aligned for OU and Kansas to play for the championship again. If we had played the Jayhawks, and lost, I would've never made it out of Atlanta alive.

[cjames317]

Kinda puts a little perspective on our great football teams over the years that were championship-caliber but just didn't win that last game.

[badger]

:P I've started a sister thread on the sooner sisters on the same subject :D

But as long as I'm here, I think we need to wait until March before passing final judgement. If they get to the title game, they'll match what 88 did. If they fizz out early in the tourney a la Calvin, we'll be moaning about how this team was no better than the others that made the tourney. If this team takes the nets down come the title game, how can they not be ranked No. 1?

They'll be best ever IF and only IF they make the title game. Otherwise, 88 is still tops. If they top what 88 did, they deserve "best ever" annointment.

[King Crimson]

88 for me is by far the most pain i've ever experienced in 38 years of being a Sooner fan--in any sport. Sims fumble at Nebraska was a killer too, but mostly because i was so young.

86 hoops was bad, too. i remember playing being stunned after the game sort of shooting hoops with some of my buddies, mostly too beaten down to even talk.

90 i watched the 2nd half in a motel in Richmond, Utah. i swam the next morning in the pool, full of leaves, at sunrise (so poetic, huh?)...kind of numb. remembering that it actually HAD happened.

[soonervegas]

Very well put. We could win 10 national championships, but it still wouldn't heal the hurt from 1988. It just shouldn't have gone down that way.


I just want to go on record that this WOULD heal the 1988 wound for me. :)

[OUmillenium]

Best OU record maybe but with the modern rules on underclassmen leaving early and more difficult academic standards, college basketball is watered down.

These teams were better IMO...
1985
1988
1989
1990

I'm not sure about any of the Sampson teams, probably his final four team should be included.

[Readyfor8]

You are smoking crack if you think there are 5 teams from OU History being better than this one. Granted this team is young, and that one was seasoned, but 88 is a probably, 87 is a maybe and 09. There is nothing Kelvin did in his entire career that is close to what this team is, no offense I loved the 02 Final Four team, but that team wasn't being talked up to win the tournament this year, which this team is capable of.

[badger]

Wait till March starts! (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Wait till March starts! (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Wait till March starts! (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Wait till March starts! (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Wait till March starts! (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Buckner's a ****** (clap. clap. clapclapclap)
Whoops, sorry. Just a relapse from the college days of one whorn that we all hated. :D

[8timechamps]

It's funny OU basketball has a lot of almost teams when I think about it. The only way this team is going to be better than 88 is if it wins the championship. They will have to retire 23 all over again for Blake and I honestly see in him a Hall of Fame guy at the next level, and I think he has done right by his number because I think Griffin may be better than Wayman.

So that would give this team a POY Naismith, Hall of fame, but you had 3 NBA carreer guys on the 88 Team. Those 88 guards would have shredded this team I think.

Here is a good comparison for this team and that, who would you rather have on the sideline, Capel or Tubbs? I think if you wanted to win a championship I would rather have Capel, and in the end that will be what makes this team our best is if they win the championship.

With a lot of luck, we could get a reeling UCONN or the team that defeated them and not have to face Pitt or UNC until the final. It could be that small, as to whether this team finishes ahead of that one in the end.


Good points overall.

I agree that the 88 guards were on a different level than these are. It's hard to compare the two though. Mookie was a junior. I think WW has the talent to be great. The problem is that he (probably) won't be here for his junior year.

You bring up a good question about which coach I'd rather have. Half of me says Capel, the other half says Tubbs. I guess it comes down to what kind of defense I want to see. With Tubbs, there wouldn't be much, but the offense would be overwhelming. Good question.

I think UCONN is done. When Dyson went down, so did their title hopes. Of course they will make the show, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them get knocked out early.

As for the final four, if everything goes the way it is expected to go, we won't see UNC or Pitt until the Final Four.

Good post.

[Readyfor8]

If both Pitt and UNC are on the other side of the bracket, then UCONN will be our Final Four matchup, and I see them losing at least one more game probably Pitt and Marquette which are both away games. Fortunately I think they have the depth to make a run into their conference tourney and still get a Number 1 seed, making them the 4th number 1 seed.

If that happens OU winds up with the easiest path to the National Championship game, and that could be the difference maker here, forcing us to only play UNC or Pitt not both in Detroit.

With any luck this team could bring home a lot of hardware. Even then it would be hard to eclipse 88 Oklahoma.

To put this in perspective, who here considers 88 Kansas to be better than 88 OU. That Kansas team won a title, but that doesn't make them a better team it just makes them the better team that night in KC.

Just because this team wins a title doesn't mean it is better than the 88 team, but it could mean this team lived up to or at this point beyond it's potential and had a coach that could take them the distance.

Lets wait and see, but I know one thing this March is going to be fun. Respect the JINX!!!

[8timechamps]

IF This team finishes the regular season undefeated, and wins both the conference and the NCAA tournaments, it's going to be very hard to say this wasn't the best team in Sooner history.

Going through the entire season with only one loss (on the road), is a huge statement for being the best.

Of course this is all worthless mumbo jumbo until we see what happens.

[Rock Hard Corn Frog]

let ya know in early April!!!

I know that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek but I think you are right.

At this point I don't think this is the most dominant OU team. We aren't steamrolling all comers. I think the Big 8 in 1988 was much stronger relatively speaking than the Big 12 this year. On the other hand at 25-1 at this point it isn't like you can do MUCH better.

If this team is say 32-2 going into the NCAA tourney and we lose in say the sweet 16 to finish 34-3 you could make a case as a body of work it is the best team ever.

If you are going to compare with the 88 team I think the ONLY thing that will clearly top that team is winning the NC. The 88 team and the 2002 teams were the best teams in the country. The 90 team was more similar to this team in some ways. Won a ton of games, not always in dominant fashion. The 85 team was just a little under the radar most of the year with a great player but I can't objectively say that they were better. Certainly not at this point of the season.

Do I think this team WILL win the NC like I was nearly certain the 88 team was going to? NO. This team has a good shot though.

So best team ever? Not yet but probably top 5.

Also as good as Mookie and King were, Griffin is the only player that I think might even be better than Tisdale. I NEVER thought I would say that about anyone. I think if Griffin was playing in the Billyball days he would have 3-4 50 point games.

[Readyfor8]

Griffin in Billy Ball would be really entertaining.

About Wayman, I think he is still the greatest player to ever play at this University, and not only that but he is still a great influence around the program and catches games like every time I am there. But all Griffin has to do is pick up a championship or two and he could be our Barry Sanders bleh.

I will say this, Wayman Tisdale wore 23, Blake Griffin called him up to ask if he could wear the number, and then turns out to be what he is, a possible Naismith award winner. The next dude to have to call both Blake and Wayman, he better be one bad mutha... And he better become President after he takes both the Pistons and the Lions to championships to live up to that.