OUr Guard Play

[boomersooner28]

is not good enough to be elite. I, personally would like to see WW at the point and Cade at the 2, along with Patillo and the Griffin boys. AJ and Crocker aren't giving us anything. I mean hell, Blake is being double-teamed every play and the dudes can't score in double digits?!?1?1? :mad:

[OU_Sooners75]

If we wish to get past the first weekend...Capel better gear our team for it.

Crocker should be our 6th man, not one of our five starters. AJ...his TO:Assist ratio is good. We should utilize him more as a true pg, meaning use him like the Sheephumpers utilize Eaton.

Depending on the opposition, either Cade or Patillo shouls be starting.

I am sorry for those that like Crocker. But his defense has nose dived ever since he has been shooting the ball terrible. Time to make a slight change and bring him off the bench.

Just my .02. But like I said, if we wish to get past the first weekend, we have got to make some changes...and I hope Capel realizes it.

We have only won 2 games of the last 6. Pathetic!!!!! Something needs changin!

[OU_Sooners75]

Let me add this...

Next year, our guard play will be better.

I can only hope Warren and Blake returns, wishful thinking I know. But whatever!

[Taxman71]

Uhh, Crocker's defense on Andersen kept us in the game last night. Warren's defense was gawd awful, Cade hardly played and AJ was jekyl/hyde all night. Taylor's lack of second half minutes hurt b/c he was playing very well and kept the defense off of Blake late in the first half.

IMO, we are too slow on offense and allow the defense to settle in on Blake. When we push the ball up the court, we get alot of mismatches and open looks. No reason to slow the pace on offense unless you are designing the offense to go through #23, which we did not do last night.

[NormanPride]

Anderson's terrible shooting and decision making kept us in the game. Crocker just happened to be there. He was playing the shooters loose, lazy coming off screens, and would get lost on rebounds. His play last night was the worst I've ever seen from him, on both ends, and he really needs to take a long hard look at himself to see what he needs to do to play better.

[IronHorseSooner]

In my "misery loves company" moment, I can say that this was the case with a lot of highly ranked teams yesterday. A great comparison is WVU-Pitt and Syracuse-UCONN. Like us, it was against a bitter rival who was unranked, but playing well down the stretch. Like us, Pitt looked lackidasical and almost disinterested. UCONN looks lost without Dyson. In all three games, the underdog played with fire and emotion. Pitt and OU looked like they were trying to get an early exit to get rest for the tourney. BTW, Memphis looked that way for a half yesterday, and KU got blitzed in a similar fashion to Pitt.

[JohnnyMack]

Anderson's terrible shooting and decision making kept us in the game. Crocker just happened to be there. He was playing the shooters loose, lazy coming off screens, and would get lost on rebounds. His play last night was the worst I've ever seen from him, on both ends, and he really needs to take a long hard look at himself to see what he needs to do to play better.

I don't know what game you were watching but I thought he played OK defensively. Willie Warren's D is atrocious and AJ acts like he doesn't give a ****.

[SoonerFanInAustin]

It just proved last night that if we play against a team with a decent point guard, we are in trouble....Or even more, when our guards play bad, we WILL get beat.

Big XII is a little down on PG's this yr. Kansas has a good one, he took over at the end and we got beat. Can't say we would have won with Blake, but maybe so.

Anyway, look at our losses. Guard play has been just terrible and we have had a lot of turnovers. We can win the 1st Rd, but after that, we will be in trouble....

Capel has to get these guys straightened out quickly....

[NormanPride]

I don't know what game you were watching but I thought he played OK defensively. Willie Warren's D is atrocious and AJ acts like he doesn't give a ****.

I agree Willie was beyond abysmal and AJ has either given up or his back is hurting him more than he lets on. But Crock was a mess, man. He didn't know where he was half the time, but I guess the other players' terrible performance might have been the cause of some of that. He wasn't as bad as Willie, and wasn't as soft as Blake, but he also wasn't as good as Cade, and that is unusual.

Blake has never played D all this year. It's so consistent that I believe he's being coached to never leave his feet on D, and to just force bad shots with his size and strength keeping people from moving him around.

[kc sooner]

I don't know if anyone remembers this, but before the mizzou game, idiot john sundvold actually said the thought OU had the best halfcourt D in the conference if not the country, I just laughed out loud when he said that. It just goes to show that announcers just look at a teams record and talk them up without really knowing what they are talking about. Our D and Free throw shooting have been troublesome all year, and now throw in when our guards can't shoot and forget how to play basketball sometimes, that just adds up to some losses lately. I just really think we have been overhyped a little all year and now we've played some better teams and we are losing some games. But hopefully we can get it turned around, but I won't be surprised at all if we win one and then lose in the tourney. I really hope they prove me wrong!!

[boomersooner28]

You break defenses down by penetration. AJ couldn't penetrate on my 12 year old niece. Crocker is a spot up shooter that can't shoot right now. OUr only chance in the tourney is to have WW penetrate his *** off and kick it out to Cade for threes or break down the D to get the Griffins easy baskets. We launch too many horrible shots. Now, EVERYONE has the gameplan to beat us. Double Blake and make OUr guards win the game. OUr guard play has proven lately that they can't win the game.

Defensively, we suck in man-to-man. We need to play zone and hope we don't get a matchup with a team that can make threes on us all day.

Needless to say, I am not all that optimistic but hope to be proven wrong. Blake and Taylor deserve to go out on a better note than one and done.

["MVP"]

Even though you are right, we aren't dominant at the guard spot, I feel like they are good enough since we have the best forward in basketball in Blake Griffin, and Willie is a beast.

[Soonerus]

Look at the good side, at least AJ will not be back for another year...

[Rock Hard Corn Frog]

I actually thought based on what I saw a month ago that we were a good defensive team. We have not had a great defensive effort though since the last A&M game. Maybe it is something about playing A&M since last year we kept them without a basket for like 16 minutes. Since then we have just been good enough at times with enough offense.

I'm not saying we need to go back to Kelvinball but to go more than 1 round into the tourney we are going to run into teams that aren't going to be content trading baskets.