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Are we entering the Dark Ages of ORU Basketball?


lamb740

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In 2003-2007 we had the Green-Tutt era

2008 we had the red-hot senior Ehambe and Jarvis to bridge the gap

Then in 2009-2012 we had the DoMo era

2013-on -- Who do we have? I feel like we have been spoiled over the past nine years with a level of basketball that cannot be sustained long term for this program. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to see us enter a period of irrelevancy until Sutton & Co. can find the next Caleb Green and build a program around him.

Thoughts?

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TheEagleman will agree with you if we lose to St. Gregory's tomorrow night....... :nerd:

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I'd call the period between the 84 NCAA tournament team and Bill Self's NIT team as the dark ages of ORU basketball.

Things could be a lot worse.

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I think this year's team could be better than last year's team. Definitely not the dark ages. If we don't win 20 games, I think it would be a disappointment.

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Dark ages??? A little over-reaction to a bad road loss in the season opener, huh???

I'd say just the opposite, that the future of ORU basketball is quite bright. We brought in some very good freshmen this year, and already have another on the line for next year. Our coaching staff is still quite intact. We're affiliated with a new conference that should provide better recruiting opportunities and an improved chance of playing in "the dance". What's not to like?

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It's bad enough that someone actually started this thread, but why is it showing up twice?

Although... I am glad to see chatter return to the board.

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It's bad enough that someone actually started this thread, but why is it showing up twice?

Although... I am glad to see chatter return to the board.

That better?

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I could not disagree more with the original post. We have a couple of freshman that are going to be dynamic and a couple of other really solid role players, that are freshman. Plus, we just got a verbal from a kid (Lee) that had originally committed to Arkansas,

My feeling about ORU hoops is that the best is yet to come.

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It will take some time for this team to establish its identity. There are three established players - but they have relied (in some part) on other players (Morrison, Craion, etc) and need to create a new role as leaders. We also have at least six new players (freshmen & transfers) and they need to establish their roles too. Some of these players will begin to provide leadership as well. This will take time.

This team is talented - we just need to establish a point guard and get good post play from our big guys. The coaches and players will figure it out.

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Well, one thing for sure. This thread brought out the posters on this site. To that give the original post credit. However, this is a team that is still working on the chemistry factor and I am sure that after the first 10 games will be very solid. Maybe by the Tulsa game we can find ourselves. Need to win that one for sure!! I trust our coaching staff to get this team ready for this year. I also believe we have a Domo/ Green on this squad and will show himself very shortly. Twenty wins this season for sure! :fubar:

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I was at ORU during the dark ages, i.e. NAIA.

I remember being so excited to get a win vs. OCU. greg sutton and his 40 shots a game.

Young team, finding identity, good coaching, good season at the end.

Great to be back!

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People always look back at a great player's career and mention the "(fill in the blank) Era" as if the player was a transcendent superstar right from the beginning. Sometimes this is the case. Most of the time it was not; the superstar put up modest numbers early in his career and then matured into an all-time great.

You mentioned the "DoMo Era", and I think that is a great example of the kind of revisionist history our society tends to use towards great players. DoMo scored less than 10 points per game as a freshman, on a team that finished one game over .500. Even his sophomore and junior seasons don't really measure up to many of the most successful seasons (from both a team and individual standpoint) in school history.

It wasn't until his senior season, when the team won 27 games and a regular season conference title and he averaged nearly 20 points per game that DoMo truly established himself as one of ORU's all-time legends. And that's okay - most college players don't move into their school's pantheon of greats until their final year. But it is inaccurate to refer to the "DoMo Era" as if he was a transcendent player from the moment he set foot on campus.

(Nothing to do with basketball, but I'm reminded of this mischaracterization every season when I watch the MLB All-Star Game and hear old sportswriters wistfully mention an All-Star Game from decades ago that featured two dozen Hall of Famers. As if A) every single one of those Hall of Famers already had a Hall of Fame resume at the moment that game was played, even the rookies and B) none of the players in the current game who aren't veterans with a decade of service are capable of having Hall of Fame numbers by the time their careers are over in 15 years. But I digress.)

Back to ORU basketball... in much the same way that no one really knew that DoMo was going to be an all-time school legend two games into his freshman season (or even two games into his senior season), it's impossible to know which of the current crop of players is capable of reaching that level. Maybe in April we will look back on Warren or DBH and think of them as an all-time legend after they averaged 20 points a game and went to the NCAA Tournament as a senior. Remember that Warren will likely end his career in the school's top-10 list in scoring, and with one NCAA Tournament appearance he will surpass DoMo in that category.

Maybe Warren and Damen will be thought of as transitional seniors in the Ehambe/Jarvis mold, veterans who had great senior seasons and bridged the gap before the next great player emerges.

How will Glover and Tree be remembered? Both are capable of scoring 17+ points and game and talented enough to win two conference player of the year awards.

And we're way, waaaaaaaay too early in the careers of Jackson, Billbury, Byford, Kaufman and Emegano to have any clue what their careers will look like four years from now.

So really, who knows? Maybe in a few years we will refer to 2009-12 as "The Niles Era" or "The Roundtree Era" as if that player had been a stud all along. Maybe we're on the verge of "The Glover Era", or "The Obi/Byford Era", or "The Billbury/Jackson Era" and we don't even know it yet.

Either way, we have entirely too many promising options to sit here on November 14, 2012 and question whether or not we are about to enter a "Dark Ages" era of ORU basketball.

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I liked it too - but I would call it a 'moment' or maybe a micro-era.

Good times - my boys and I were there enjoying every moment.

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Our freshmen signings this week and last year have been really good, and punctuate a serious dearth of talent signed and/or retained from 2-3 years ago.

So, yeah, I guess you could call this year "The Dark Ages", or at least as dire as it should get for awhile, because the freshmen we have now - plus the guys we are bringing in next year - are truly talented.

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