Sooners not competitive in Final Four rematch with Nova

Photo: Bob Donnan, USA Today

One team beat the hell of the other team in December.  In their rematch in the Final Four, the team that took the dog kicking reared up and scratched the crap out of the team that did the dirty in the first meeting.  And that basically sums up today’s National semi-final NCAA game in Houston.  Villanova’s Wildcats got revenge on Oklahoma  95-51.

Now, the particulars:

1. As OU was the better team in their earlier meeting in December in Hawaii, Villanova was that much better today.  A 67  point swing in game scores tells you that Nova had a lot of upside improvement from that afternoon on Pearl while the Sooners had already developed into a well-oiled machine.  That machine broke down today.
2. The great Buddy Hield is a great college player, talent, but he is not an aggressive scorer by nature.  Great players get their points in big games and today Hield didn’t show. But that is not his nature in OU’s offensive system.  In the NBA things will be different.  But Buddy cannot do it alone. Teams win and teams lose.
3. To get beat as bad as OU did today takes effort on the winner and lack of effort on the loser.  It was not a pretty sight to get you ass handed to you by a team you crushed earlier in the season.  That fault lays at the feet of Lon Kruger. There are reasons why certain great coaches, as yes, Kruger is one, don’t ever win the big one. Ask Missouri’s Norm Stewart, OU’s Billy Tubbs, or Oklahoma State’s Eddie Sutton.
4. The Sooners gave up the wagon in the final ten minutes of the game.  Embarrassing when it should not have been.
5. Villanova was outstanding today.
6.  It’s the NCAA tournament and things like this do happen to great teams like Oklahoma..

OU will be good again and don’t think Kruger can’t have this program back to the Final Four again.

Last word:  as they say “forget about it” Sooner fans……the sun will rise tomorrow and it will be a better day.