The Sooners will reappear when Clark does
Published: 1/24/2012 8:21 AM
Last Modified: 1/24/2012 8:21 AM
Last year's Oklahoma-Baylor basketball game in Norman was notable for two reasons:
It was played on a Wednesday afternoon with free admission for blizzard-weary fans.
And Cameron Clark put on a show the Sooners have been waiting to see again ever since.
Clark scored 25 points behind a career-high 11 baskets. Even more encouraging to OU that day, he took a career-high 19 shots. He stood out, a freshman no less, among Baylor's relay team of freaky athletes. His ridiculous tip dunk in the first half set the tone for a victory that made the Sooners a surprising 4-3 in conference at the time.
Well, three days later, Clark took just three shots and scored no points at Oklahoma State. The Sooners lost. They would lose seven straight games after that in which Clark stayed in the shadows. That was fatal for an OU team that needed his athleticism, if not his overall talent, and the Sooners wound up 5-11 in the Big 12.
A year later, OU is a little more talented, a little more athletic. But the Sooners still need Clark to assert himself. When he doesn't do so, it still has a harmful impact.
OU got off to a 9-1 start because, among other things, Clark played boldly. It wasn't so much that he scored in double figures in six out of seven games at one point. It was that his shot total reached double figures six times. He was looking to create a little more, looking to score, looking to matter.
Then came game 11. Clark goose-egged at Cincinnati. And in a replay of last year post-OSU, he let it have a domino effect on his game and his confidence. Clark made a total of seven baskets over his next four outings. He hasn't taken 10 shots in a game since the one before Cincinnati, and has scored in double figures twice in conference play (10 points against both Kansas State and Texas Tech).
It got to the point Lon Kruger replaced Clark in the starting lineup, in favor of a more energetic Carl Blair. Nobody saw that coming before the season started, when the Rush The Court blog predicted Clark would be OU's "breakout" player and would average 15 points.
At the same time over on FoxSportsSouthwest.com, Brian Smith made Clark one of the Big 12's "sophomore studs," along with headliners like Baylor's Perry Jones and Missouri's Phil Pressey.
"The Sooners struggled last season," Smith wrote, "but Clark showed signs of promise."
He showed the most promise in that upset of Baylor. The Sooners need a repeat of that performance to hang in tonight against the Bears, who have only widened the talent gap since last year's weather-delayed game.
Kruger figures as much, and has given Clark his starting job back. Now the enigmatic sophomore needs to make it count, against Baylor and then at Kansas State, at Kansas and against Iowa State and Missouri. It's a brutal five-game stretch for a team already teetering.
Clark can't afford any more disappearing acts. Nor can his team.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
