Taking stock of Sooner men's hoops
Coach still there, another round of roster building, a modicum of momentum
Let’s talk Sooner hoops.
Let’s talk the program some love to hate precisely because they once loved it.
They loved it and can’t understand why losing conference season after losing conference season, matched with no NCAA tourney success, continues to be met with apparent indifference.
One, though it’s hard to be pleased Porter Moser remains coach, it’s not too difficult to except.
His fourth Oklahoma team really did make an end-of-season push to finally return to March Madness; though the roster’s undergoing another offseason reconstruction, there’s finally some good vibes fueling the effort; not to mention $7 million-plus has been saved not having to buy out his contract.
There’s still no good reason to believe he’s the guy to bring OU back to prominence, but there’s reason enough, given the saved dough, to give him another season to convince us.
If OU had only gone unbeaten in three games it absolutely should have won: at Texas A&M, Texas at home, LSU at home, it would have broken even in its new conference.
If Moser had only realized the Sooners were better with Mohamed Wague on the floor than Sam Godwin, and budgeted minutes accordingly, that might have been worth another win or two, too.
Win games like that and get decisions like that right next season and maybe we’ll all be looking at him differently.
So there’s that.
Two, perhaps OU, in addition to thinking outside the box, might get serious about the program, too.
Like, where is Jim Nagy’s counterpart in Moser’s program?
Nagy, you may recall, is Sooner football’s new general manager, which should not confuse him as his being former general manager Curtis Lofton’s successor so much as the personification of an entirely newly imagined general manager, one truly overseeing the program, one who doesn’t so much work for the head coach as alongside him and might one day have the head coach working for him.
Nagy used to run the Senior Bowl, which is less a game than a talent combine.
He’s also worked in the front offices of Seattle, Kansas City, New England and Washington of the NFL
It seems like Moser’s program could use somebody like that if the right somebody could be found. More, hire the right somebody and dividends should pay off more quickly than on the gridiron, basketball rosters being entities in which one or two players, or just the right mix of players, playing for the right coach, can change everything.
Perhaps somebody like that’s coming, but what OU has done instead is “hire” Trae Young, who happens to still be point guard of an Atlanta Hawks team bound for the play-in portion of the NBA playoffs, as an assistant general manager.
Cart before the horse?
“Young’s responsibilities will include assisting with the evaluation of high school and transfer portal prospects, as well as helping negotiate player contracts in accordance with NCAA and conference rules and the team’s revenue share budget,” read the release announcing Young’s return to the program. “He will also assist with university fundraising initiatives to help grow support for OU’s men’s basketball program.”
The first part of that makes it appear Young has a background in scouting, contract law and accounting, of which he has none of the three.
The second part of it sounds like something he might perform very well.
Also, Young has pledged a $1 million gift to the program, which is terrific and, no doubt, wholly separate from his hire.
I can even see it working.
What recruit’s not impressed by Young, especially if he’s standing in that recruit’s home, watching in that recruit’s gym, or just giving that recruit a call from time to time?
It’s a brand new college basketball world and Sooner athletic director Joe Castiglione’s doing what he can to not just live in it, but thrive in it. Or, at least, suffer fewer headaches on its behalf, leaving more time to concentrate on the cash cow that’s football.
Yet, if a hoops version of Nagy’s position isn’t also created, and for the women’s program, too, Sooner basketball is either falling behind or failing to be out front, neither of which is optimal.
Three, as long as we’re at it, can’t OU charge students nothing, get them out of Lloyd Noble Center’s end zone, put them on the floor and the first 10 or 15 rows up and down the court’s sides, maybe buy them a coke and a hot dog and finally claim a real student section or die trying.
Yeah, you’ll have to move a bunch of donors from their seats but do you want atmosphere in that place or not?
It’s a dream, but Michigan State and Duke do it exactly right and Sooner basketball used to be right there with them.
Or win a lot more than you’ve been winning. Win like the program used to win.
That could work, too.
Might take a new coach.