Bedlam about to boil over
By Staff Reports
2/8/2006
Everyone knowsthat those involved with the men's basketball programs at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State don't exchange Christmas cards. But it is of note that seldom has the relationship been as strained as it is going into Wednesday night's Bedlam game at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
There has never been any love lost between the schools in academics or athletics. That dislike intensifies in sports for the obvious reason of head-to-head competition.
But the bad blood that has often existed in the past during football recruiting has spilled over to the hoops teams. And behind the scenes, it's reaching a nasty point that could boil over.
The heat was turned up considerably when the NCAA launched an investigation into Sooner coach Kelvin Sampson's program for making excessive calls to recruits. OU has acknowledged that Sampson and some former staff members broke the rule by making 550 calls.
No one associated with OU will state on the record what they strongly feel privately -- that OSU turned the Sooners in to NCAA investigators. They believe other Big 12 schools were also involved, but some are convinced OSU was the ringleader.
OSU officials obviously aren't about to confirm OU's suspicions. And there's no way to prove if the Sooners
are correct because the NCAA won't reveal the whistleblowers who help initiate any investigation.
But OU is aware that at least one lackey who hangs around the OSU program and considers himself close to the coaching staff has called me dia outlets offering inside information he claims to have about OU rules violations.
Newspapers get calls, e-mails and letters all the time from people with tips on what they believe is wrongdoing. But few of them have access like some OSU groupies believe they do, which raises all kinds of red flags at OU.
And there's also this: One of the 17 players OU is accused of making impermissible calls to is Kevin Bookout, who selected the Sooners over OSU after an intense recruiting battle. Sooner coaches know their counterparts in Stillwater remain bitter over losing Bookout.
This ugly Bedlam feud has been building since January 2003. For a few days that month, Cowboys' coaches were convinced standout Arizona guard Will Bynum was going to transfer to OSU.
Eddie Sutton and his staff figured they had landed the point guard they badly needed at the time when Bynum lined up classes he planned to take when he enrolled at mid-semester. He went so far as to make an appointment with the athletic department's academic adviser.
OSU was understandably stunned when Bynum changed his mind at the last minute and transferred to Georgia Tech. Ironically, it was Bynum who made the game-winning shot when Tech defeated OSU at the 2004 Final Four semifinals.
Stories of Bynum's switch surfaced the week of that Final Four in San Antonio. Bynum and OSU guard Tony Allen, high school teammates in Chicago, claimed it was a phone call from Sampson to Bynum's mother that helped direct her son away from OSU.
An OSU source told the Tulsa World at the time that when Sampson called Bynum's mother "he questioned the character of Oklahoma State's players. He also told her Tony Allen would be a bad influence on her son; that he had already been in trouble."
Sampson strongly refuted that claim when he told the World, "I've never talked to Will Bynum's mom in my life. That would be false."
False or not, the damage was done. So, did the hard feelings from the Bynum situation motivate OSU to request that NCAA investigators look into OU allegedly abusing the rule allowing a coach one phone call per week to a recruit?
As I said, we'll probably never know the truth because the NCAA won't release its files. And nobody at either school will state on the record his or her true beliefs on the subject.
But they will continue their fierce recruiting battles, like the one they waged last spring over another point guard from Chicago -- Jamaal Brown. OSU won that tussle, and it just might end up keeping OU from making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament next month.
OU desperately needed Brown after pouting point guard Drew Lavender transferred to Xavier. And the Sooners looked like a better fit for Brown, because OSU had already landed Byron Eaton, the Parade All-American point guard from Dallas Lincoln High School.
After Brown eliminated OU from consideration, the Sooners never found a comparable replacement for Lavender. That recruiting failure was evident in last Sunday's loss at Kansas, when the Sooners once again struggled with their half-court offense.
A day earlier, Brown was a key factor in OSU's win at Kansas State. Replacing Eaton in the starting lineup, the former junior college All-American responded with two critical 3-point baskets as the Cowboys rallied from nine points down late in the second half.
If Brown plays as critical a role in tonight's game, it will help stir up a Bedlam pot that has just about reached its bitter boiling point.
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Dave Sittler 581-8312
[email protected].