Straight to the point of OU's NCAA exit
Published: 3/30/2009 12:56 AM
Last Modified: 3/30/2009 12:56 AM
CONWAY, Ark. -- I've had a couple hours of I-40 travel to contemplate Oklahoma's NCAA exit. And the thing I keep coming back to is point guard play.
I swear I don't mean this to be an Austin Johnson rant. I had the guy dead and buried around 50 times in the past four years, and he kept rising from the casket to throw a perfect alley-oop to Blake Griffin or toss in a 30-footer to beat the shot clock and clinch a tough road win.
What Johnson never could do, however, was consistently rise to the level of the point guard I had the pleasure of watching in Memphis, Ty Lawson.
Someone suggested to Jeff Capel after the Sooners' loss to Lawson's North Carolina Tar Heels that the gap between the number of Carolina's really good players and OU's needs to close if OU is going to compete with the Tar Heels' like down the road. Seems true when you consider that OU's best player wiped the floor with Carolina's, and yet Carolina's supporting cast wiped the floor with OU's to the point that the Tar Heels had the game won six minutes after tipoff.
To me, the widest gap was at point guard, and that's not so much an indictment of Johnson as it is an acknowledgment of Lawson, the South Region MVP. Before the first time out of the second half, Lawson had set up Deon Thompson for a layup, dropped off Johnson and toward Griffin defensively to steal Johnson's entry pass, and answered Griffin's most jaw-dropping moment of the game -- a one-handed catch-and-jam of Johnson's lob -- by going right back at OU before the Sooners could react defensively for two quick points.
Later, he answered Capel's move to a 2-3 zone by shooting over it for 3, hit a bunch of free throws and went about finishing a 19-point, 5-rebound, 5-assist, 3-steal, 1-turnover game.
"Ty Lawson ran the team like a point guard should," OU's Willie Warren said afterward.
And the thing is, Carolina gets that from Lawson every single game. How far back in Sooner basketball annals must you go to find a point guard with that kind of command? Can you even find one at all?
The drought nearly ended with Scottie Reynolds (you saw what he did for Villanova Saturday night, right?) three years ago. Maybe it finally does end next year with the arrival of McDonald's All-American Tommy Mason-Griffin.
Look, I admire what Johnson gave the Sooners for four years. He made it a heck of a lot longer than anyone thought he would.
But if the Sooners want to make it longer in coming NCAA tournaments, they'll have to measure up better at the most important position on the floor.
The one Lawson played so decisively in leading Carolina back to its familiar spot in the Final Four.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
