The View From Oklahoma City

Sorry for the poor picture quality, but I only had the camera phone. Oklahoma City was a nice locale for a basketball tournament. It has a nice arena right next to a big convention center right next to their entertainment district, "Bricktown." Some observations:

1. Julian Wright may be my favorite college basketball player if only because his body is so unlikely. He has a normal size body, but his neck, arms, and legs look like fire hoses. When he moves at normal speed, it looks like he is being controlled by a puppeteer, bobbing his head and limbs as he walks. But, when he plays, he looks somehow natural, as if the only thing that body was ever built for was basketball. All his flailing has a purpose. He can shoot and looks to score whenever he gets it. Now if we could work on those windmill dunks.



2. Kevin Durant is everything he is cracked up to be. He's 6-9, his hands hang down below his knees, he can shoot effortlessly and accurately. He was by far the best player in the tournament and it hard for me to imagine a better player in college over the last several years. He had 37 Sunday and they were effortless. Three pointers that didn't touch the rim, baseline spin moves, he never looked like he was working out there. Everything looked natural. The only knock I have on him is that he never put together a complete game. He would dominate a half and then sort of disappear. If he does put together a complete game, he'd score 50. I thought he might Sunday after he hung 19 on Kansas in ten minutes. Texas is a dangerous team if only because no one will figure out Durant.

3. Another guy that impressed me was Jarrius Jackson for Texas Tech. He could shoot it and drive it down low for tough lay-ins. It's a good thing he is so good, because Texas Tech didn't impress me in OKC. Jackson was their only threat to score for most of the game. Their offense looked completely out of sync the whole game and Bob Knight chewed his players for it. I know they had some big wins, but Texas Tech didn't look ready for the tournament.

4. Is it me or do the promotions people who pick fans for the shooting contests amused with how unathletic their contestants are? Do they get three guys together, make them run, and whoever falls down during the race gets to shoot for new tires or a chicken sandwiches? One guy they picked last weekend looked like he swallowed a watermelon. When he ran to retrieve a rebound, he looked like a weeble wobble rocking toward the ball. If I'm never selected for one of those contests, I will take it as a compliment to my meager athletic abilities.

5. After seven games with every halftime consumed by mediocre dancing girls performing stripper moves, I'm issuing a challenge. ADs everywhere, ban the dancing girls. From now on, I only want three varieties of half time entertainment: Frisbee catching dogs, acrobats, and the quick change lady.

Basketball tournaments are a lot of fun. The setting is more intimate than football. You can hear the players, the crowds get loud in a confined building, and the bands play loud during the breaks. It's a great atmosphere. With that said, basketball may be the most gut wrenching sport ever invented. No lead seems safe. The final two minutes are constant pressure. If Georgia ever gets a team deep into the NCAAs, I would explode under the stress.