Cowboy Wide Receivers for 2016

This week brought great news to the future wide receivers room when Tylan Wallace verbally committed, widely considered the top receiver in Texas. Wallace has a year of high school left to
play, but let's take a look at who else is there and who could make an impact.

Starters
James Washington, Marcell Ateman and Jhajuan Seales look to be the headliners of the group. Washington returns after a 1,087 yard season to go with 10 touchdowns and being named 2nd team all Big 12. His connection with #2 is phenomenal and big numbers are likely to be the result again. Ateman looked to come around to his 4* potential with some flashy play and consistency last year and Seales is the third banana. Seales is incredible at getting
open/separation but has been plague by drops as well. He probably has the most to improve out of this trio.

Backups
Veteran Austin Hays, flashy sophomore Jalen McCleskey and the cerebral Chris Lacy are most likely the next guys up. Hays moved to town in 2012 and looks to fill the role of aged, reliable possession receiver. McCleskey was born for slot reverses and has apparently turned into quite the downfield threat as well.  I'd be surprised if the Cowboys don't continue to find ways to get him the ball. Chris Lacy, a former 4* wideout from Houston, will hopefully continue to develop a niche in the offense. He got some time last year, scoring a couple of touchdowns, but the 1st team academic all Big 12 player seems to be scratching at the surface of what he can do.

Newcomers
This group starts and stops with true freshman Tyrell Alexander. TCU and others came after him hard late in the 2016 class, and while he decommitted for a time, he's back in the fold and will be someone
to watch. At 6'2", 6'3", if he can beef up, the eventual successor to the goal line fade could be joining the roster in June. Another potential player to watch could be Dillon Stoner, from Oklahoma high school powerhouse, Jenks High. A utility knife player that often times willed his team to victory, Stoner played in the slot and could be a dark horse candidate to fill the David Glidden/Josh Cooper/Josh Stewart role. It may be more likely that he plays special teams and works his way over to the defensive side as a safety. Last of all, speedster LD Brown coming from DFW (DeSoto) could catch a few passes now and again, but is likely to redshirt and pack on some pounds with the wealth of talent the Pokes have returning.

I'd be remiss not to at least mention the Cowboy Backs who look to again be a factor in the offense. Blake Jarwin returns after an all conference year and a beefed up Keenan Brown has made his way over to the group. He'll be worth keeping an eye on. This group has a lot of heritage and with Rudolph at the controls, these guys should be able perform at a high level.

Thundering into the Playoffs

The Thunder have a treasure trove in the frontcourt that other teams surely envy. Kanter at 23 and Adams at 22 could start for nearly every team in the NBA at the 5, Serge is still top 5 at blocked shots and saw a huge surge in three point efficiency last year, then you've got a former MVP that moves over in the 4 and kills teams. McGary would arguably be in rotations and Collison is the glue that holds it all together. Kanter has shored up the 2nd units scoring excellently as Waiters hasn't been able to fill the Harden/Kevin Martin/Reggie Jackson role as effectively as hoped. Prime Thabo (40% 3PT and lockdown perimeter D) is gone, replaced with the uncomfortably lopsided Roberson. 

Tonight, the Thunder roll into the Air Canada Centre riding a 7 game win streak. While life post-All Star Break had been tumultuous at best, it appears the Thunder have turned a corner with impressive wins against playoff teams like Boston, Indiana, Utah, Portland and Houston. As we near the end of Donovan's maiden voyage, I wanted to flesh out what the current state of the union is, perhaps looking at what some might say are " the good, the bad and the ugly".

Good: Unstoppable Offense

Billy D. was brought into town for his unique voice, inherently a change in direction for the Thunder. The untrained basketball eye can see as a whole that the ball is moving more (sans last 5 minutes of close games) and nobody is proof of this more than the all-star point guard, Russell Westbrook. Averaging a career high 10.6 assists a game, Russ has gotten others involved to previously unseen proportions. He's second only to Rajon Rondo and leads heralded passers Chris Paul and Ricky Rubio. Donovan's system has the ball moving and the offense scoring at franchise high levels-a 113.1 offensive rating.  

Bad: Turnover Prone

Now, here's the bad part: there are growing pains. Unfortunately, the ball movement has been expensive and the Thunder has dropped to 26th in the league in favorable turnover margins. When you think about a team's strategy, priorities come into play. For instance, the Thunder are a historically awesome rebounding team but teams are scoring on them with top 10 efficiency. The Thunder kills on the glass but it costs them transition buckets. Turnovers, I believe, are a result of taking the ball more out of the hands of your most efficient players (KD, Russ, Kanter) and letting it touch the hands of your less efficient guys (Roberson, Adams). With that being said, Russ is #2 in the league in turnovers and KD trails at #7, but part of that is due to sheer volume of minutes and unfortunate play at times this year. 

Ugly: Wing Depth

Herein lies what could be the Thunder's flaw: a glaring weakness at the 2 to play with Russ. You've got loads of guys you can plug in with Singler, Morrow, Waiters, Roberson, Cam Payne and Foye, but nobody has been able to play consistently on both ends of the floor. 20 years ago, the league would have envied (and still does to an extent) the foreigner filled frontcourt the Thunder has, but that's not quite what you need to overtake the twin towers (San Antonio, Golden State). 

Ultimately, the Thunder has performed incredibly this season outside of the late game implosions and unfortunately inherent flaws previously mentioned, but they're a team to proud of. The question is, can they bring down the retooled Spurs and the Warriors. 

Hiring Underwood

On Wednesday Brad Underwood was hired away from the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks to become the 19th head coach in Oklahoma State University history. A favorite quote from his exit conference at SFA is sited below:

"There's not enough adjectives to describe how excited I am for the opportunity  to coach where some of the greatest coaches in history of college basketball have cut their teeth, Oklahoma State has unparalleled tradition, history and culture."

While it's customary to schmooze the new fan base pretty hard, Oklahoma State has two legendary coaches on it's honor roll and is often lauded as a top 15, if not top 10 program. In an overwhelmingly stout conference (Tubby took Tech to the Big Dance and now Jamie Dixon to TCU?!), Underwood is tasked with shedding the mediocrity of the decade of Ford/Sean and getting the Pokes to the top third of the conference and second weekend of the tournament every March.

How should one perceive his chances of achieving elite status and reviving the aforementioned gloried maple?

What to Think About This Hire:

1. Coach Brad is Finally Getting his Turn:
   Looking at Underwood's resume and thinking about what he must have went through... In the days of instant gratification, Underwood spent 11 seasons as an assistant Western Illinois (1992-2003), 6 years under Bob Huggins and Frank Martin at Kansas State and another with Martin at South Carolina. Combine that with 7 years coaching junior college and 3 years at SFA, the guy has 27 years of coaching under his belt. Last December, he turned 52. I'm a believer in the 10,000 Hour Rule (check out "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell) and if Underwood worked 48 weeks each year at 60 hours a week (conservative figures for coaches), he's clocked in 77,760 hours as a coach at this point. You can look at guys like Charlie Strong in college football and say that experience doesn't make you an expert, but when you look at his recent success (89-14, 53-1 in conference play), it paints a picture of someone who does in fact know what they're doing.
2. Fit
   Could only imagine that during interviews this was the easiest box that Underwood checked. Born and raised less than 3 hours from campus in a Midwestern town of similar size with a similar culture doesn't seem like it would induce culture shock. From there, he's a K-State alum who's spent a good portion of his life on that campus-an institution well known to be nearly a Xerox copy of Stillwater, even alluded to by Holder in the intro conference as a "sister school". Underwood was happy in Nacogdoches and happy in Manhattan and he'll be happy in Stillwater. Jenny Carlson reported on how poor of a fit Ford was, mentioning the rumors of his wife's early request to commute from Edmond and Ford's supposed fit about not liking the Chevy provided by Johnson's of Kingfisher. Underwood's wife was quoted "this just feels like home" as they drove around town. Homerun.
3. Style of Play
   My friend Sam did an incredible post on PistolsFiring looking into what Underwood does offensively and boy was that fun to hear about. Ford peaked at maximizing Byron Eaton and not messing up the incredible game that James Anderson has, but proceeded to do his best Scott Brooks impression offensively by rolling the ball out and telling the guys light it up. SFA last year was incredibly efficient and almost Spurs-like at their level, reversing the ball and patiently, methodically waiting for the flow of the offense to reveal the best shot. At his intro, he alluded to how the closer to the basket you get, the better chances you have at making them. I don't expect Coach U to be a data analytics darling pulling corner 3s, but I'm incredibly excited about what he provides from a structural standpoint. And I haven't even gotten into the fact that he had the most favorable turnover ratio in college basketball!
4. Circumstances
   My goodness, is there a more difficult conference for a coach to walk into? His direct competition is as follows:
   Bill Self, Lon Kruger, Shaka Smart, Tubby Smith, Jamie Dixon (the other "rookie" to the league), Scott Drew, Bruce Weber, Steve Prohm and Bob Huggins
   Wow. Now, Ford didn't leave the cupboard completely barren, and it's a good thing the new offense only calls for one big, but my goodness that's a dearth of experience and wisdom. The days of cupcakes are long gone in this conference and it should make for a competitive environment if there ever was one.
   Another plus is that you're no longer following one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history. Coming on stage after Eddie is a monumental task that no one is excited to follow but Ford is a different story. Underwood will have that in his favor. Everything looks to be lining up for a new era, assuming we give a little bit of time for him to readjust to the world of Big 12 basketball.  

Bottom line: Coach Underwood looks to bring a gritty, hard nosed, disciplined brand of basketball back to Stillwater. While he comes across as extremely relateable, we can't forget that he comes from Huggins-Martin-sidelines will be intense. But the days of fluffy defenses and stagnant hero ball driven offenses are over, and one thing I fully expect is to see a true, Cowboy team walk on the court this fall. One that fans can be proud of. 

Replacing Travis Ford

Such has been the mood of Cowboy Basketball fans since Oregon stifled the 2014 run and Marcus Smart flew the coop. With sparse sunshine (Jawun Evans dimes and unexplainable victories over KU in GIA), dense rain has fallen on the Cowboy faithful, soaking and nearly extinguishing the remaining memories of suffocating defense and disciplined shot selection. 35 second calls, terrorizing traps and bloodthirsty 4 year transfers have been replaced by a revolving door of under performing touted recruits and hopelessly fragmented units that can't figure out how to function as a team. 

But the night is over and the dawn is on the horizon. Mike Holder swallowed his pride and graciously sent the Madisonville, Kentucky native home with a golden parachute only Wall Street execs have come to know. It's hard to believe the day is finally here but reasons for hope are here. As spring has arrived in Oklahoma, so has the hope of revival in Gallagher Iba Arena.

Now, who will be the face of this great orange revival? Who can light the oldest maple in college basketball on fire and bring the droves back to the Madison Square Garden of the Plains? Here are some names to chew on:

Favorites: 

1) Buzz Williams, Head Coach @ Virginia Tech

Buzz has been perennially mentioned as a B12 coaching candidate, being rumored a candidate for the OU and Texas jobs and now for OSU and TCU. He grew up in Texas and played college ball at Oklahoma City University. Buzz is known for an outstanding job following Indiana's Tom Crean, taking Marquette to an Elite Eight and two Sweet Sixteen's, but he's done a solid job turning around a less than favorable situation at Virginia Tech poised for a big jump in his 3rd year in Blacksburg. As far as a name and experience, Buzz would be only 2nd to #2 on the list of candidates the Pokes have a shot at. 

2) Gregg Marshall, Head Coach @ Wichita State

With the last of his impact Final Four players departing with VanVleet and Baker graduating, now is as good of a time as ever to leave. Wichita State is rumored to be starting up a football program and that figures to change the conference they'll be competing in. Leaving the friendly confines of the Valley could be an exciting challenge for Marshall-or he could see valuable resources leak away from the program to support the new venture. After turning down the UCLA job in recent years, it begs the question why he would now accept the OSU job. The biggest problem would naturally be this: can you politically pay Marshall more than the bellcow that Gundy is? The football program has clearly floated the $75m budget that OSU enjoys and it's hard to imagine a world where Mike is accepting of this. While it wouldn't be a deal breaker, Marshall has never appeared the glad handing, well-liked politician that helps with garnering fan support. This is a different breed of cat than the previous south Kansas import, Coach Sutton. 

3) Doug Gottlieb, College Basketball Analyst @ CBS Sports

Doug has what appears to be a sizable groundswell of fan support, particularly those of us who spent those cold winter nights in Stillwater watching him facilitate an Elite Eight squad of athletes (Mason, Alexander, Joe Adkins and Jonzen). Doug is a coach's son (his dad Bob was a head coach at UW-Milwaukee, Jacksonville and an assistant at various major D1 schools) and his brother Gregg is an assistant at Oregon State, so it could very well be in his blood. Doug is intriguing in that he's a national name from the booth and a tie to the highly successful Sutton era, even being recommended recently by the living legend. While some are (rightfully) dismissive of a rookie coach taking over, how much risk could there be in bringing in Doug with his brother, and a bench full of vets (maybe James Dickey and Sean Sutton) to help him figure it out? The answer is probably more than I want to say but nobody would fill up the stadium faster than Doug and the cursive Cowboy jerseys.   

Long Shots/Not Happening:

4) Kelvin Sampson, Head Coach @ University of Houston

While it's even blasphemous to consider the former head coach of the rival school, there's not too much coaches floating around with Final Four's on their record and the degree of familiarity with Stillwater and what it would take to win there. Other than the aesthetic reasons, Sampson's exile from the NCAA at Indiana is the nail in the coffin for one of the wildest "what might have been"'s.  

5) Bill Self, Head Coach @ University of Kansas

Bill is in the "not happening" category but the hyper successful alum will always be dreamed of and yearned for by the orange clad faithful. A player under Paul Hansen, Self coached under Sutton and would be the ultimate hire that could bring about a third age of glory to be compared against only Iba and Sutton. There's always rumors in the fan base that once the Self children are grown, the favorite son will come home but it doesn't appear likely in the near future. 

Ultimately, it comes down to your risk preference and what you value. Do you want to fill the seats? The OSU faithful will rally around an alum from day one. Do you want the highest possible floor to your hire? Go for someone who has won at the level and hope they haven't plateaued. My personal preference is to avoid the mid-major darlings as appealing as they can be (see Ford, Travis, former head coach at UMass).  

Who the fans want is who can in 2,3 years light fire to the 13,611 seats in GIA. The Cowboys don't require national championships for motivation to show up in droves, but they do require a coach, a figure head that gives them hope, that makes them respect his decisions and will incite players to honor the traditions of man defense and hard work. Hall of Fame worthy coaches have often sprouted since the Great Depression, the fans expect a disciplined, hard-nosed brand of basketball. Holder has to find someone they'll respect, pay for and follow regardless of oil prices.