Rockets Sign

[polish]

John Lucas out of Okie State, since he can't be worse than Wesley, it's a great signing

[Loftin]

We need to sign a big man. Yao is hurt and Dikembe is tired/fragile.

[Pokes28]

Pretty break even for us OSU fans, they release Stevie Graham (from OSU) to sign JL3 (from OSU)...

David Harrell - Pokes
dwh

[Loftin]

Speaking of OSU, man what is going on with your team? Y'all are the perennial Big XII South frontrunner year after year, but this year y'all don't look so hot. Did you lose too many to graduation? Injuries?

[Vlyrock]

Yeah, Houston needs something when you lose 3 straight to my Hornets!! :)

[Pokes28]

Speaking of OSU, man what is going on with your team? Y'all are the perennial Big XII South frontrunner year after year, but this year y'all don't look so hot. Did you lose too many to graduation? Injuries?

Well, we basically played 7 guys last year and we lost 6 of them (all but JamesOn Curry) to graduation.

We lost:
Ivan McFarlin (4 year starter now in Europe)
Joey Graham (in the NBA)
John Lucas III (in the NBA)
Daniel Bobik (in Europe)
Terrance Crawford (Europe I think)
Stevie Graham (was in the NBA till last night)

This is a VERY young team. We have one senior on the team and he's not worth the scholarship (Aaron Pettway).

So our lineup consists of guys that haven't played much the past two years in Marcus Dove and David Monds. Last year's starter JamesOn Curry, three JUCO guys (Mario Boggan, Jamal Brown, and Tore Johnson), and then a whole slew of freshmen (Byron Eaton, Rodrick Flemmings, Terrel Harris, and Kenneth Cooper). We also have a freshman that hasn't been cleared by the NCAA (Keith Brumbaugh).

This year has gone about as a lot of us realistically expected. This is the most athletic talent to ever be on the court for OSU. But it is young and lacks experience in Eddie Sutton's system. So we expected a lot of up and downs. A tough loss to top 10 team Boston College, a ref decided loss to top 10 Gonzaga in Seattle, a real melt down at home versus Northwestern State (Curry had 5 fouls and zero points and we lost by a couple), then a good win against Tennessee and then getting rolled by UAB. Not all that unexpected.

At the beginning of the season, Boggan was hobbled with a foot injury and wasn't in shape to play many minutes until the last week or two. We've lost our best defensive player for the next month and a half (Marcus Dove) when he was undercut against Tennessee and fractured his hip. Then Monds really hurt his knee against UAB. Add that to being a man down because our highest rated recruit that didn't go pro still hasn't played in a game for us. Now Tore Johnson has been suspended (we don't know for how long) for violating team rules.

OSU will be just fine though. I think the schedule works out pretty well in Big 12 play. By the end of the season, I expect this to be a very good team. I just hope that they don't have too many let down games that prevent them from getting to 20 wins this season.

From what I understand, the Suttons were mad as hell at the defensive effort against UAB (it sucked). They have dug out the football pads for practices and they've been doing three a days and pretty much making life hell on the players yesterday and today.

David Harrell - Pokes
dwh

[Loftin]

Thanks for analysis, that answers my questions.:gig:

[NPLAggie07]

This season has been hard to watch. I just want to reach the playoffs. There is still time...maybe Lucas will come in and do a good job. I hope it happens, I didn't think Luther Head would do as well as he has done so far this year.

[Loftin]

Luther Head is a good talent, but the Rockets desperately needed size and drafted another guard. I said at the time, and still believe, that not drafting Wayne Simien was a big mistake.

[NPLAggie07]

Stromile Swift was brought in to add size to the team but I thought that was the mistake. He has not been a consistent player in the past or this year. I could be wrong but I have been a little disappointed in his play this year except for the NO/OK game.

[Loftin]

Stromile would have been a good pickup in addition to Simien, not in place of. We are loaded with guards and small forwards, but we NEED big men. We needed more than one new big man.