Maybe this will bring Blake back
Published: 3/31/2008 11:15 AM
Last Modified: 3/31/2008 11:15 AM
There is a sense that luck is, at last, an Oklahoma basketball teammate. Helps explain David Godbold's answered prayer at Texas Tech, and Tony Crocker's 4-point play that beat Baylor, and the fact the Sooners drew Colorado at the Big 12 tournament, and their generous No. 6 seed in the NCAA.
You play the percentages, you figured this would eventually happen.
According to Andy Glockner of ESPN.com, OU was "the second-most 'unlucky' team in all of Division I (in 2006-07), as measured by a final record that was more than four games worse than what was statistically expected, given the Sooners' overall performance. We're not talking about a single last-second shot that rimmed out or a questionable whistle that changed the outcome of the game. This is about season-long, unbalanced and statistically improbable misfortune, when a team finds just the wrong time to go cold or give up a big rebound or miss a free throw. It's how a team with 20-win productivity ends up 16-15."
The Sooners spent the first two-thirds of their 07-08 season just as jinxed. They lost Keith Clark to grades, then Blake Griffin and Longar Longar, for stretches, to injury.
Then Godbold landed his game-winner in Lubbock, and suddenly OU was rolling in 4-leaf clover. The latest bit of fortune? South Carolina's interest in coach Jeff Capel, which helped prompt a new-and-improved contract designed to keep the blossoming young coach in Norman through 2014.
What's next? Griffin's decision. Logic dictates the man-child take the millions that await him in the NBA and call it a one-year OU career.
Maybe, just maybe though, the Sooners will luck out once more.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
