Spring sports…

Now that basketball is over, we can move on to spring events. In addition to a basketball hiring blitz with total uncertainty about who will be hired for both the men’s and women’s BB positions, we have softball and baseball to pique our interest.     

Speaking of softball, the Sooner softball team continues to win at a record pace as they swept Iowa State over the weekend to notch their 25^th win in a row.  I know we are talking Iowa State here, but I believe this year’s Cyclone team was a decent team competitively.  Every little bit will help as we prepare for OSU and Texas down the road.

The Sooners are hitting at an unbelievable pace.  This teams reminds me of the Norman 1^st Baptist slow pitch team of old.  They were church league behemoths as they reminded those of us from Sinclair Baptist of the Bronx Bombers.  The balls screamed off their bats at lethal speeds.    

After the Iowa State series, the batting average for the starting lineup is a salty .454.  After walks are figured into the equation, this team is getting on base every other time up to the plate.  Patty is also rounding her pitching rotation into shape as well, a move that will provide us with three solid pitchers for those tough three-game series down the road. 

Baseball survived a tough swing through Texas last week as they dropped three in a row to Texas State and Texas.  It could have been a lot worse however as the Sooners had to score a run in the 9^th to eke out a 3-2 win in the finale in Austin.  This may not seem like a big deal, but had the Sooners dropped that final game and headed home to face OSU on Tuesday with their tails between their legs, this season could have gone south in a hurry.

As it is, this team still has a lot of upside for this year and beyond.  In the Texas series we had five freshmen in the starting lineup.  We also must keep in mind that this team knocked off top ranked Arkansas in front of 8,000 fans in Fayetteville last week.  As we always say…small steps. 

Boomer Sooner…

Lon Kruger’s message…

I have said enough already about the cheating coming out of Stillwater and other college towns these days.  There’s no sense beating a dead horse, but I thought before I leave this subject, I would share the words of Lon Kruger.

This question was posed to Lon during his post retirement press conference…

IS THERE’S ANYTHING ABOUT THE STATE OF THE GAME THAT WORRIES You AS you leave IT:

“Absolutely, great worry for the game. As great as the game is—and you’ll get me on a soapbox here—but the NCAA, you know, has got to revamp. Period. I mean, we can’t continue as we are. And young coaches today seeing people violate the rules and nothing happen is ridiculous, and I’m concerned about the young coaches taking that as a lead.

You know, one of the greatest things my dad imparted is there’s no satisfaction in cheating and winning. I mean, absolutely anyone can do that. So, you’ll get more on a soapbox here, and yeah, there needs to be great changes. And it’s tough because of the amateurism aspect, the legal fronts, what you can do, but the NCAA right now is going to a gunfight with a knife and we’re not winning.  

We need change. You know, we can’t continue to turn our head and be blind to craziness out there. And we know what’s going on, and it needs to be changed.”

Enough said…

Same old story…

One must wonder how OU’s season would have turned out if Cade Cunningham had not shown up in Stillwater this year.  Of course, he did show up and making matters worse the NCAA backed off on their post season ban for OSU.  OSU was part of the biggest FBI dragnets since the Al Capone days, but regardless they are set to trot into March Madness anyway. 

For the record, here is the backdrop to this story…Lamont Evans, a former OSU assistant is cooling his heals in Leavenworth for his part in the “play for pay” scheme.  Evans and current OSU Head Coach Mike Boynton hatched this scheme while they were at South Carolina. 

When the FBI began snooping around the South Carolina campus, Evans and Boynton bolted for Stillwater to be part of the Brad Underwood staff.  Boynton eventually replaces Underwood as Head Coach and Evans becomes Boynton’s assistant. 

Here’s the kicker…Lamont Evans is eventually trotted off to prison leaving an opening on Boynton’s staff.  Mike Boynton being smarter than he looks hires Cade Cunningham’s older brother to take Evans’ place.  The extent of the older brother’s college basketball coaching experience was working in the film room at Tulane. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.     

Of course, we know the rest of the story…the older brother “Cannen” becomes the lead OSU recruiter for Cade Cunningham’s services.  This should be illegal and maybe someday it will be, but as for now, it’s called business as usual at places like OSU. 

Cade Cunningham, the top high school prospect in America ends up in Stillwater and as they say, the rest is history.  The “one and done” star single handedly beats the Sooners in Norman which led to OU’s downward spiral.  OSU on the other hand gets a four seed in the tournament which should assure the Ags a sweet sixteen berth.     

While the NCAA delays the OSU post season ban and the local media casts a blind eye to the proceedings, the beat goes on.  I know that the locals and the NCAA will never catch on to this stuff, so what’s the point.  The point is that it is wrong.   The game is hanging by a thread as the NBA sucks the life out of the sport, so someone somewhere should care about these things.    

Boomer Sooner…

OU basketball…

Okay, let’s cut to the chase… OU basketball on both sides of the gender aisle is a washout.  When was the last time that an OU sport went 0-5 against OSU in one year?  How about never…   

On the women’s side Sherri Coale has apparently won just enough games to keep her career afloat.  That’s unfortunate because watching Sherri’s career unravel is like watching a train wreck. This is not to say, that the men’s side is much better.   

The Sooner men are ending the regular season on a 1-5 run with three of those losses coming to rivals OSU and Texas.   Give our players credit, they overachieved early on, but that end run was painful to watch. 

From my vantage point it appears that both teams have one thing in common.  Other teams have better athletes.   Until Sherri and Lon recruit better players, things will not get turned around.   Big time recruits are not giving the Sooners a second look.  This year alone, the men’s and women’s teams lost blue chip recruits living less than 30 minutes from the Norman campus. 

On the men’s side, this timing is particularly bad.  OSU has stepped it up in a big way to fill the void.  Yes, I know OSU has turned cheating into an art form, but no one outside Norman gives a rip about that.  

Here’s the deal…$5 million dollars a year is a lot of money to pay for the Lon and Sherri show.  As OU fans, we have every right to expect more bang for our buck.  

Boomer Sooner…

OU basketball…

Okay, let’s cut to the chase… OU basketball on both sides of the gender aisle is a washout.  When was the last time that an OU sport went 0-5 against OSU in one year?  How about never…   

On the women’s side Sherri Coale has apparently won just enough games to keep her career afloat.  That’s unfortunate because watching Sherri’s career unravel is like watching a train wreck. This is not to say, that the men’s side is much better.   

The Sooner men are ending the regular season on a 1-5 run with three of those losses coming to rivals OSU and Texas.   Give our players credit, they overachieved early on, but that end run was painful to watch. 

From my vantage point it appears that both teams have one thing in common.  Other teams have better athletes.   Until Sherri and Lon recruit more athletic players, things will not get turned around.   Big time recruits are not giving the Sooners a second look.  This year alone, the men’s and women’s teams lost blue chip recruits living less than 30 minutes from the Norman campus. 

On the men’s side, this timing is particularly bad.  OSU has stepped it up in a big way to fill the void.  Yes, I know OSU has turned cheating into an art form, but no one outside Norman gives a rip about that.  

Here’s the deal…$5 million dollars a year is a lot of money to pay for the Lon and Sherri show.  As OU fans, we have every right to expect more bang for our buck.  

Boomer Sooner…

Conspiracy theory…

Before we move on to our National Championship sports of spring football, gymnastics, softball and yes, golf we need to address the Big 12 bias against OU.  The Sooners have embarrassed the Big 12 office over the past decade by dominating the conference in a number of sports.

To get back at the Sooners, it appears that they chose to punish the men’s basketball team.  The Covid induced reworking of the schedule over the past two weeks should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.   Making matters worse is the fact that the two teams that benefited the most from this skullduggery were Texas and OSU. 

In a nutshell, games against Baylor and Texas scheduled as home games when the Sooners were hot and listed as a #2 seed were postponed.  Wins over either one of these teams at that point in time would have done wonders for the team and fan psyche.  Instead, the Sooners were forced to take a week off before traveling to Ames and Manhattan. 

We got an ugly win against Iowa State and an uglier loss to Kansas State.   We limped back to Norman for a season ending double header against OSU.  The best team that money can buy beat us in both games.    Not to be outdone, the scheduling committee forces an exhausted Sooner team to play a run and gun Texas team in the season finale.  In the span of two weeks the Sooner season was now in shambles. 

Seriously, who in the OU Athletic Department agreed to this mess.  They could not have created a worse scheduling scenario for the Sooners if they had tried.   Then again, maybe they did try.  You already know that I don’t trust those guys and this latest incident won’t help their cause with me.   In any case, regardless of whose fault it is, our players deserved better than this. 

Boomer Sooner…