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Are we entering the Dark Ages of ORU Basketball?


lamb740

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To answer the original topic: No, we are not.

 

If you think that 18-13 and 3rd place (3 games out of first) in a conference that has an automatic NCAA bid is the dark ages, you are seriously missing some historical perspective. Most of that has been covered above (Trickey take 2, the NAIA years, and the early return to NCAA were truly the "dark ages"), but I think we are headed to bigger and better things. I for one still really like our chances of going dancing this year, and the future is bright with some great young players and recruits. Especially, as Dr. C notes, if we can get over the injury and ineligibility bug.

 

This ^.

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Wow, a "This" from Old Titan might be the pinnacle of my posting career. [in case anyone thinks that is sarcasm, it is not. While I may not agree with OT every single issue, his perspective on ORU basketball history and loyalty to the program are unquestionably beyond reproach.]

 

And I can't wait to gloat when we destroy SHSU, beat NW State, and upset SFA to go dancing!

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Congrats, ORUTex!  I've NEVER gotten a "This" from OT.  That puts you in a pretty elite class of ORU commentator. 

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Hey Tex....I also don't think that we are headed into the Dark Ages of GoldenEagle basketball but if ORU beats SHSU, NW State and SFA to go Dancin'.....TheEagleman will be more than happy to kiss your "This"..... :*

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Bring on SHSU!  Awesome post ORUTex, I'm right there with you.  Wish this weekend wasn't so busy and I could have gone to the Southland tournament.

 

Let's win 3 and then bring on Liberty (or the SWAC representative).  Let's at least play enough games to get Warren Niles 2000 points.

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Hey Tex....I also don't think that we are headed into the Dark Ages of GoldenEagle basketball but if ORU beats SHSU, NW State and SFA to go Dancin'.....TheEagleman will be more than happy to kiss your "This"..... :*

Didn't you already say on another thread if this happens you'll be giving up all alcohol for the rest of 2013?  Better slow down on the promises!  :-D

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If Trammel White makes it in that is a 3 to 4 game difference in wins. At least. He is that good.

 

Hope everyone is doing well and will be rooting on ORU tonight!!

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Losing Trammel White was a big hit for the team. We had to rely on (redshirt) freshmen to play point guard. White was also supposed to be a decent defender. Then we lost Roundtree to injury and personal issues, etc.

 

I know every team goes through issues, but those two things have really impacted this season.

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Is Trammel White still at ORU and playing next year?....or is he done?... :nerd:

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Things are never as bad or as good as you think they are.

This season seemed to hinge on a few bad (second) halves. Maybe that points to a short bench and fatigue at the end of games. But we have played with a short bench before and it didn't bother us. If we make a few stops and make a few baskets (Belmont, Oklahoma, TU, Weber State, etc) this season would have had a different feel. Our past squads would have found (willed?) a way to win those games. Intangibles (basketball IQ, toughness, determination, will, discipline, focus, leadership) can make up for missed shots. And this team seemed to be missing the intangibles this year.

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Here's the deal:  we play a very straight-forward brand of basketball - almost exclusively man-to-man defense, plus a limited number of offensive sets predicated around feeding the post first.  Our fast break approach is basically a jail break, and if we have any inbounds plays designed to produce easy scores, I've never seen them.

 

It's a pretty vanilla philosophy, kind of like a smash-mouth football team.

 

So, when you are that simple and predictable, you HAVE to have superior talent.  Otherwise, you are just too easy to prepare for, especially in a conference tournament setting where you are seeing an opponent for the third time in 75 days.

 

The SMSU coach said they tried their third different defense Thursday night to slow down Damen and Warren, and it worked.

 

In contrast, I'm not sure we even HAVE three different defenses.

 

Now, this is not to totally question our coaching philosophy, but I think it was pretty apparant most of this season that our modest approach to the game does not lend itself to overachieving with less-than-extraordinary talent.

 

The good news is, in contrast to our current state of affairs, this coaching staff has experienced a lot of success when they have good players in the fold.

 

Bottom line?  To paraphase Morgan Freeman's character "Red" from The Shawshank Redemption:  "Either get busy recruiting, or get busy dying."

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Here's how I see it:  last season we probably overacheived and it gave us greater confidence in our team than we probably should have had.  We came away winners in a number of games that could have gone either way.  Last season Ken Pomeroy's system gave us a ranking of 107 and a "luck" ranking of 32. 

 

This season, in those close games, we failed to get the bucket at the end.  In games that could go either way, luck wasn't on our side.  This morning Pomeroy has us ranked at 170 with a luck ranking of 262.

 

I think there were a lot of different sorts of problems that hampered the team this season, and we've talked about all of them on here at one time or another.  I think the mysterious thing about this team, though, has been the cosistent inability to finish.  We have consistently, from the earliest games of the season, played weak second halves.  Why is that?  Last night, after shooting decently in the first half we come back in the second and it's like there's a  lid on the bucket.  Not so for our opponents - they invariably seem to come out on fire.  Last night SHSU comes out after the half and scores five very quick points cutting our alftime lead from six to one, if I remember correctly.  It's incredibly frustrating.

 

Another thing that plagued us all season long, from OU to SHSU, was the drive and kick-out.  The point guard or someone would drive down the lane, our defense would collapse in, and the ball would be kicked out to a sharpshooter on the wing for a wide open, uncontested three.  It kept teams in games that shouldn't have been, and cost us others that we shouldn't have lost, and we never had an answer for it.  We never seemed to catch on or something. We never made adjustments to prevent or minimize the effectiveness of that play.

 

Hope springs eternal for sports fans, so today we start thinking about next season.  The slate will be clean and fresh, and this season's frustrations will be behind us.  The ideosyncracies of a new conference will be over, new rivalries will have started, and things will look a lot better than they do today.  As Geoff said last night, these are a great group of guys.  They've provided us some real thrills over the season.  I don't think we should overlook the hard work and sacrifices that each of them makes in order to provide a bunch of us old men (and also some young ones!) some entertianment on Thursday and Saturday nights.

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I don't see a Ken, Caleb, or Larry coming in so coaching will have to improve. I wasn't surprised we lost, just in the manner in which we did. Like OT pointed out our talent isn't high-major so they need to be put in the BEST possible position to win. Let most teams in D1 go on a 8+ minute unanswered scoring run and you will lose. Would we have lost if we had broken up their scoring run with a timeout? Maybe. But at least we could have calmed the players down, regrouped, and put them in a better position. What's going on now doesn't really look like game management.

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I know that we discuss this a lot over the coming months, but here is a list of our returning and incoming (recruits) players:

 

Glover

Roundtree

Lliteras

Manghum

Jackson

Billbury

Conley

Emegano

Byford

Kaufman

Word

Lee

 

Assuming no defections/changes, this leaves us with one open scholarship. Lots of young players - eight sophomores or freshmen.

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