Does anyone like OU?
Published: 3/17/2008 12:58 PM
Last Modified: 3/17/2008 12:58 PM
Remember the night Oklahoma won Bedlam, and coach Jeff Capel told his team before tipoff nobody else thought it could beat Oklahoma State? He'll have to dust off that speech Friday.
The Sooners are a 6-seed opposite No. 11 Saint Joseph's, and yet nobody is picking them to make it to round two. I mean, nobody.
The ESPN gang all went with St. Joe's last night. And when I popped on the net this morning, I found outlets like New York Times, the Chicago Sun Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Palookaville Post had all hopped aboard the bandwagon.
It's beginning to feel like 2006, when the sixth-seeded Sooners spent their entire day-before-the-first-round-game press conference explaining everything that was wrong with them. Wisconsin-Milwaukee, OU's opponent, felt much more like the 6 than the 11, and sure enough it played with a favorite's confidence in KOing Kelvin Sampson's team the next afternoon.
The '06 Sooners played under a gloomy cloud in Jacksonville. You could see the early exit from back in Norman. This year's group seemed genuinely uplifted by their surprisingly high seed on Selection Sunday. Their outlook on tournament life is much sunnier.
Their biggest problem is St. Joe's, a hot team bolstered by both their Philadelphia bravado and a hard-nosed run to the Atlantic-10 tournament championship. The Hawks are armed and dangerous.
Ask anyone handicapping Friday's game against OU. You won't find many, if any, picking the Sooners.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
