Seth Davis to the Sooners' rescue
Published: 2/27/2009 10:20 AM
Last Modified: 2/27/2009 10:20 AM
Every bigtime college sports team needs a media cheerleader. Duke basketball has Dick Vitale. USC football has Colin Cowherd, Notre Dame football Beano Cook. Texas anything has Ron Franklin.
Stepping up on behalf of the Oklahoma basketball team... Seth Davis, Sports Illustrated staff writer and CBS studio analyst.
Davis voted the Sooners No. 1 on his weekly AP ballot AFTER they lost at Texas last Saturday. The, in his national coach of the year breakdown the other day, Davis came out for Jeff Capel.
"It's a little counterintuitive to hand the top spot to a man whose team is on a two-game losing streak, but we all know things would be different if Blake Griffin were healthy," Davis wrote on SI.com. "Capel has done a phenomenal job at the most important thing a coach does: recruit. By convincing highly coveted players like Griffin and Willie Warren to come to Norman, and by convincing Griffin to return for his sophomore season when he could have been a lottery pick, Capel has proved that he is a coach that kids want to play for. (He also just landed two recruits named to the McDonald's All-American game.)
"This season, Capel, who just turned 34 this month, has also demonstrated that he is a gifted game manager whose sideline demeanor remains unruffled. That he has the Sooners in the hunt for a No. 1 seed, a No. 1 ranking and a realistic shot at a national championship is something that no one could have predicted when he took this job three years ago."
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
