What's new with OU basketball
Published: 9/20/2009 10:14 PM
Last Modified: 9/20/2009 10:14 PM
With the footballers off this week, and with a commitment from touted prep forward Cameron Clark over the weekend, it seems a good time to check back in with Oklahoma basketball. Here's what I've noticed since football season started...
* Jeff Capel is making the Sooners a national recruiting player
It's one thing to convince Blake Griffin to attend college a half-hour from home, or to talk Texans Willie Warren, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Tiny Gallon or Clark into crossing the Red River. Look at the splash Capel is trying to make nationally -- OUHoops.com reported the Sooners hosted official visits by Mt. Pleasant, Mich., guard Trey Zeigler and Detroit point guard Ray McCallum over the weekend. A week ago, you could track Capel on his Twitter page and find him in New York (twice), Philadelphia, Detroit and Kansas City.
* Mason-Griffin will be fun to watch
FOXSports.com college hoops editor Josh Herwitt ranked him third among his national "impact freshmen" for the coming season. "Mason-Griffin may be a tad undersized at 5-foot-11," Herwitt wrote, "but the Houston native has what it takes physically and mentally to become an immediate star."
"Mentally" is intriguing. Remember the concerns about Warren's psyche this time last year? No such holes in Mason-Griffin's portfolio, apparently.
* Football helps, hurts OU basketball
Capel, himself a huge football fan, embraces what Bob Stoops' program does for his own. I can imagine it didn't hurt to show Clark, Zeigler and McCallum around the buzzing campus on game day Saturday.
Still, there is an interesting drawback that Capel shared with ESPN.com's Dana O'Neil: "We have to fight (the football-school image) because other schools use it against us. Certain programs send out negative mailouts or will just tell a kid, 'You don't want to go there. That's a football school.'"
* Capel is a family man
It goes for him personally -- he goes to great lengths to keep his private life just that -- and professionally. Here's what former OU great Jeff Webster told OUHoops.com recently: "I hung out with Coach Capel and Coach (Ben) Betts at halftime of the football game last weekend. Every time I see any of them, they give me a hug and are really excited to see me. They really welcomed me back into their program."
This is the kind of thing that bodes well for those who see Capel hanging around OU a few more years.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
