Tulsa World: Young Sooners work on defense

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Young Sooners work on defense

OU's Tiny Gallon (24) and Steven Pledger (2) battle for a rebound with ULM's Rory Burt last week. NATE BILLINGS / The Oklahoman

By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer
Published: 11/25/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 11/25/2009 12:07 PM

NORMAN — At the first time out in Oklahoma's basketball season, Mount St. Mary's had made five of its six shots. Tiny Gallon had been beaten inside. Willie Warren had lost his man in the corner. And the Moutaineers kept beating the Sooners down the floor for transition points.

This was OU's yellow alert.

Last Saturday night, the color turned red.

VCU led 7-6 three minutes in. Then the Rams made all six of their 3-point shots over the next five minutes. They led, 27-14. They would win, 82-69.

Warren put his finger on the problem afterward: "If this team wants to do anything, we've going to have to learn to play defense."

It's a tricky situation. The 2-1 Sooners head to the Great Alaska Shootout — they open against San Diego Wednesday night/Thursday morning at 12:45 a.m. — with four freshmen in their rotation. And freshmen don't always figure out defense until they are sophomores.

"I've been a freshman. I know how it is," coach Jeff Capel said. "It's not an easy transition, but they still have to listen to us and understand what we're saying and why we're saying it."

Gallon, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Steven Pledger and Andrew Fitzgerald are getting a lot of OU's defensive concepts in practice. That, however, doesn't mean they're applying them from the opening tap to the final whistle of games.

"What happens is young kids don't always understand it because they've never played it like this," Capel said.

"When they're in high school, they never understood it, not on the level we're asking them to play."

It's not just the freshmen, Capel is careful to point out. All of the Sooners must go harder on defense. All of them must not let wayward offensive nights affect them on the other end of the court. That happened to Warren at VCU, where he went 3-of-14 overall and missed all eight of his 3-point heaves.

"For all of our guys, it was a good example of how important defense is," Capel said. "There are going to be nights when your shots aren't falling. You can't always control that. What you can control is how you defend. We had some breakdowns after we missed some shots."

OU can't afford any of those this week at the pool-play Great Alaska Shootout. It is not a star-studded field — OU is joined by San Diego, Washington State, Houston, Nicholls State and Alaska Anchorage — but then that's not the issue.

"San Diego beat Stanford. Houston is a very athletic team that plays similarly to VCU as far as pressing and trying to create havoc," Capel said. "VCU wasn't supposed to be a worldbeater, but they beat the heck out of us. We can't take anything for granted.

We need to come out with a certain effort and understand how there's a certain standard you have to live up to. "

Guerin Emig 581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer

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