As most basketball fans were watching the NCAA tournament today, Sean Sutton took a break from the TV. He had something more important to do. He was on a recruiting mission.

     The Oklahoma State hoops coach was in Las Vegas visiting one of the top junior college players in the country–Juan Patillo of Southern Idaho. Patillo is a 6-7 small forward/power forward. He a great athlete who can really shoot the ball.

     One problem that Sutton may have in recruiting right now is that rival coaches may be telling Patillo that Sean might not be coaching at OSU next season. Still no word from athletic director Mike Holder, who is in DesMoines watching the OSU Cowgirls play in the NCAA tournament.

     It just doesn’t seem fair to Sutton. There are all kind of rumors swirling right now. One of the more prominant one is that Billy Gillispie may be the next Poke coach. This seems a little hard to believe that he would leave a presitigious program like Kentucky and head to Stillwater. There are those who insist, however, that he may be unhappy in Lexington because of all of the pressure that comes with that job.

     But Sutton has just been going about doing his job. He is trying to reassure recruits that he will be the coach next season. But until Holder says something, the specualation is hot and heavy.

     Patillo is scheduled to visit Oklahoma State next weekend. Who are the Cowboys biggest rival? Well it appears to be none other than Oklahoma. Jeff Capel and his staff have been working hard at landing this versatile player. He is good enough that he would come in and start immediately for both the Cowboys and Sooners.

     Patillo, who is from Las Vegas, averaged 17.7 points and 7.2 rebounds a game. He shot 54 percent from the field and 35 percent from three point range. He averaged playing only 21.8 minutes a game becuase his team won so many games easily. Two other teams in consideration may be UAB and Washington.

     Sutton deseves to keep is job at OSU. And it’s time that Holder comes out with a public statement because right now the Cowboys recruiting is getting hurt because of this fiasco. 

     Isn’t it just a little ironic that Oklahoma men’s and women’s basketball teams have the same type of problem.

     As the NCAA tournament play is about to get underway, both Jeff Capel and Sherri Coale have to be wondering what is going to happen with their teams. It isn’t easy trying to figure which club will come out and play.

     Early in the year just about everyone thought that Coale’s team could get to the Final Four this year. On paper they appeared to be loaded. And early in the year they played like a Final Four team. They played a tough schedule and performed well.

     But then teams started to figure them out. Just gang up on Courtney Paris inside. See if the other four players could beat you. Well, lately the other four aren’t doing very much.

     Now the Sooners have to just be hoping to get to the Sweet 16. A second round game against Notre Dame is looming. That won’t be easy. Then if you win that encounter OU will most likely face Tennessee in Oklahoma City. The Sooners would be a huge underdog in that game.

     The problem that both the OU men and women suffer from is they don’t know how their guards are going to shoot the ball. The women have been terrible from the perimeter lately. The men have been streaky.

     Not only has the outside shooting woes hinder the men, the health of Longar Longar hasn’t helped the team.

     “We knew when he suffered that stress fracture a couple of months ago that he wouldn’t be 100 percent for the remainder of the season,” said Capel. “We were watching some film of Longar earlier in the season and we can see he’s not the same player because of the injury. He just doesn’t explode like he did when he was healthy.”

     The Sooners have had a good week of practice. But does that mean anything. St. Joseph’s will not be an easy game. Hey the bookmakers have the Sooners as a slim two and a half point favorite.

     It’s just the same old story for this Oklahoma team. If the guards shoot the ball well you can expect an OU victory. If they shoot it like they did in the Big 12 tournament then you can expect the Sooners to be one and done in Birmingham.

     Jeff Capel was just shaking his head late Saturday afternoon in Kansas City. He had just seen his team play very poorly against Texas. Just 24 hours earlier he watched them struggle against a very bad Colorado team.

     There wasn’t any room for optimism at that point. His team came into the Big 12 tournament playing very well. It left playing very poorly.

     Most media insiders were saying Oklahoma could get a seventh seed at best for the NCAA tournament. There was even a chance they could fall to an eight seed. That’s not good because if you win that first game, you’re playing either a one or two seed in your second game.

     Well, the Sooners got a reward this afternoon when the NCAA committee awarded them a sixth seed. This was almost more than they could have hoped for because of the way they played in Kansas City. They got about as good of a draw as they could have asked for.

     Now the question is how far can they go?

     Well, if they played like they did in the Big 12 tourney, they will not get beat St. Joseph’s. No way! This isn’t a bad team they are playing.

     But if they play like they did in their last three regular season encounters against Texas A&M, at Oklahoma State and Missouri, then they might be able to do a little damage in Birmingham.

     The key for this club, and it’s been this way all season, is the guard play. When they shoot the ball well, they’re a decent team. When they don’t shoot it well, they are very bad.

     Capel doesn’t know what to expect. How can he? The guards have neen inconsistent all year long. They are up and down. You just don’t know what you are going to get from this group.

    No matter what happens in the NCAA tournament this has to be considered a good year for the Sooners. Capel has done a really good job with this club. There are too many limitations.

     However, it would be a disappointment if Oklahoma didn’t win at least one game in Birmingham this weekend. Sixth seeds are supposed to beat 11th seeds.

     This has been a disappointing season for Oklahoma’s women’s basketball team. The question that will be answered in the next week is has the year been a total disaster?

     A couple of year ago everyone was talking about Courtney Paris. In fact, people are still talking about one of the most dominating players who has been a part of the women’s college game. She is simply amazing.  However,  if you look back now, OU coach Sherri Coale should have been able to recruit some of the top guards in the country when Paris was a freshman.

     Why wouldn’t you want to be a guard and play with Paris? Opponents are always putting two or three defenders on her. If you are a guard, you’re going to get wide open shots. But the big=time shooting guaard never came to OU.

     Well, the Sooner became more athletic in their recruiting class. But the players they brought in just weren’t that talented of a basketball player. You may be a great athlete, but it means little if you can’t shoot the ball.

     And that’s the problems the Sooners have had most of the season. They just don’t have players that can hit a jump shot. Other teams are going to let Paris do her thing, but they believe it’s a pretty easy job to shut down everyone else.

     You’re not going to beat a lot of good teams if you can’t hit an open jump shot. This Oklahoma team can not hit the perimeter shot. It’s been a glaring weakness most of the campaign.

     It will help Oklahoma in NCAA play that it will go against teams that it hasn’t faced before. Still, every scouting report will say, let Courtney have her points and just shut down the rest of those players and you win.

     Let’s see what happens to this Sooner team in NCAA play. The expectations can’t be real high right now. If you can’t shoot the ball, you’re not going to beat high quality teams. And that’s a major problem OU faces at this moment.

     It’s a good time of the year to be playing well.

     And that’s exactly what Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are doing right now. As the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City tips off this week, both the Cowboys and Sooners seem to have a lot of confidence. And sometimes that’s what it’s all about.

     Oklahoma is slowly getting healthy. The Sooners are getting their game to where it was earlier in the year before the injuries to Blake Griffin and Longar Longar. Remember, they were playing extremely well in those wins over Arkansas, Gonzaga and West Virginia.

     A key has been the play of the guards. They have stepped up their game. Austin Johnson was outstanding in that win over Missouri. He is running the offense well and is hitting open shots.

     The Sooners have now won three straight games. I think if they win one game in the Big 12 tournament they have a chance for a No. 6 seed next week when the NCAA pairings are announced. That would be big for a team that was struggling just two weeks ago.

     Jeff Capel has done some kind of job coaching. No, he’s not going to take that South Carolina job. It’s not as good as his OU position. That doesn’t mean in a couple of years when a big-time school comes calling, that he won’t leave town. But he’s here to stay for now.

     Oklahoma State is coming into the Big 12 tourney with two straight losses. But the Cowboys don’t have to keep their heads down. I don’t think they played that poorly against OU Wednesday night and they gave Texas all it wanted in Austin before falling.

     Again, the key word here is confidence. The Pokes realize they can hang with just about anyone in Kansas City. It’s all a matter of making shots.

     Sean Sutton’s team shot poorly against the Longhorns. They still need to get more consistent play from freshman James Anderson and Terrell Harris. You just don’t know what you are going to get from either of those guys game to game.

     Try to figure this Oklahoma team out. Go ahead! And good luck while you try.

     Just ask Jeff Capel.

     “I’ve never been around a team like this. You just don’t know how to figure them out,” he says. “One game you might think they will play well and they don’t. And then in another game you might not think they will play well, and they do.”

     Betting on this team either way would not be a good idea this year. They are absolutely impossible to figure out.

     Who would have thought they could go to Stillwater and topple Oklahoma State? No sane person could have predicted that. The Cowboys were playing with so much confidence and the Sooners were without Blake Griffin. So OU wins by double-digits. Yeah, go figure.

     All that victory did was set up an enormous game tomorrow for the Sooners in Norman against Missouri. You win that one and you get the fourth seed in next week’s Big 12 tournament. That means you get the first day off.

     And maybe more importantly if you win against the Tigers you move up the seeding charts for the NCAA tournament. Right now it appears OU would be either a seventh or eight seed. But if the Sooners win against Mizzou and then capture at least one game in the Big 12 event, they could possibly land a sixth seed.

     Will Griffin play against the Tigers? The Sooners list him as questionable. But I have a feeling that you will see him on the court. He is a warrior.

     Why is this Oklahoma team so inconsistent? Just look at the guard play. When they play well so does the Sooners. When they don’t play well, OU is in for a long game. I’m giving up trying to predict what Capel’s team will do game to game. It’s an impossible task.

     When Oklahoma opens its spring football practice this week, there are a couple of major questions that need to be answered.

     What is going to happen at linebacker and who are going to be the starters in the defensive secondary. These are two major concerns of the coaching staff.

     Bob Stoops thought his linebacking group would be in great shape with Curtis Lofton coming back for his senior year. That obviously isn’t happening as this Kingfisher native shocked most people in the program when he decided to head to the NFL a year early. That is a huge defection.

     The big key is Ryan Reynolds. Just a year ago the Sooners thought Reynolds was going to be a star if he could stay healthy. They thought he would be a more productive play than Rufus Alexander, their Butkus Award nominee who had graduated.

     That definitely wasn’t the case. Reynolds stuggled after coming back from two knee injuries. He didn’t have the burst of speed needed to excel. He had big problems in pass coverage. A lot of times in passing situations late in the year, he was on the bench watching.

     The experiment going on in the spring is moving him to middle linebacker. The coaches think that’s his natural position. They also say he has regained some speed because he has been able to work hard in rehab. We will see.

     But he’s not the only question. How will redshirt freshmen Travis Lewis and Austin Box perform? Sure, they were highly recruited players, but they haven’t play a down of college football.

     The linebacking posts are critical in the style of defense the Sooners play. There needs to be some answers in this department coming out of the spring. If the guys on campus can’t get it down, then there will be some help arriving in June from the junior college ranks.

     And what will happen in the defensive secondary? Going into the spring the Sooners know they can depend of two players–Lendy Holmes and Nic Harris. They have been starters and are good players. But who else is going to be able to nail down starting jobs?

     There are a handful of young players who will be given long looks. But can the secondary be as good as it’s been this year without starters like Reggie Smith, Marcus Walker and D.J. Wolfe around? That might be difficult.

     Oklahoma is loaded at just about every other position. The offense should be explosive. The only question there will be replacing wide receiver Malcolm Kelly. The Sooners should be able to score a lot of points on just about everyone they play.

     But will they be good enough to contend for a national title? We should know a lot more after the spring when we see what goes on at linebacker and in the defensive secondary.