Billy Tubbs` eyes sparkle, and his face wears that mischievous leer, that Jack Nicholson leer, that says isn`t it fun putting one over on the world. Preseason predictions, that is the subject that has aroused his countenance, and when he thinks of those who rated his Oklahoma Sooners behind Missouri and Oklahoma State in the Big Eight, he can`t help but laugh out loud. ”I love that crap,” he finally says. ”Everyone wants to be thought of as the best, so I use that as a motivation factor.”
”Oh, yeah, we heard about it,” his center, William Davis, is soon saying, and he too is laughing. ”All during our running program, he`d be yelling, `They`re probably running faster than you.` Personally”-and here Davis turns serious-”I was very insulted. I thought we should have been second or first. Us being Oklahoma, we knew we`d do what we needed to do to win.”
”Since we lost Stacey (King) and Mookie (Blaylock), people couldn`t predict us,” Sooner forward Skeeter Henry is soon adding. ”But we knew when we started playing pickup games that we`d have one of the best teams in the nation. Here at Oklahoma, we like to be No. 1. Coach Tubbs always talks about other coaches apologizing for being No. 1. But when they don`t rank us No. 1, we get mad.”
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A pair of No. 1`s wandered into Oklahoma`s Lloyd Noble Center earlier this week and were promptly smacked right on their ranking. Missouri was the first, last Sunday afternoon, and the Sooners blithely swatted them aside 107-90. ”But even after that,” guard Terry Evans would say 24 hours later,
”I don`t think we have the respect we deserve. I think we need another big win, then we`ll get it.”
That win, a 100-78 win, came Tuesday night against Kansas, a poised and veteran club the Sooners harassed into mistakes normally associated with rank amateurs. They played with unbridled emotion, at a withering pace, in full-cry frenzy, and by the time that evening drew to a close, two facts were clear:
that Oklahoma deserved the respect it coveted and that its name must be added to that list of legitimate national title contenders.
A year ago, when King (now with the Bulls) and Blaylock (Nets) were their leaders, the Sooners were near the top of that list, but as that season wore down and the tourney approached, they faded badly and found themselves eliminated in the regional semis by distinctly average Virginia. ”We never really put the pieces together last year,” Tubbs now admits, and that was just the task that faced him as this new season dawned.
Back then, in October, those talents resembled nothing more than pieces of a puzzle lying atop some table, and their scrambled state was one reason the Sooners were regarded so lightly. So, too, was that absence of a star, that marquee name who would step forward and assume the mantle worn through the `80s first by Wayman Tisdale, then by Harvey Grant and finally by King and Blaylock. Still, back then, Tubbs was irrepressible, and despite the modest predictions, despite the apparent disarray, he openly opined, ”I think we`ll be a good team.
”I don`t know how good. We gotta see how they respond to combat. But they run better and they`re tougher physically (than last year`s team), and I like their mental outlook. They bust their butt every day.”
”I like the mental makeup of this team more than its talent,” he echoed earlier this week. ”I`ve said it often, this is a blue-collar team. They roll their sleeves up and beat hell out of each other. Some teams are soft. Those are white-collar teams. Others just get after it, and that`s this one. We`ll always be finesse, but this year we bang, we hit. Physically, we`re stronger than we look.
”I think we`re getting maximum production from them now. But our job is to get more than the maximum.”
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Tubbs, of course, had another job before his latest, and that was arranging his new pieces into a cohesive whole. He knew early that Henry, a returning senior, would be one of his starters, yet he was forced to construct the rest of his lineup on the run and as he viewed his players in action.
He had a pair of strong candidates for the point, but one, freshman Evans, was coming off a redshirt season, and the other, Smokey McCovery, was arriving from Midland Junior College. Out of Barton County Junior College came Jackie Jones, and that trio was joining returnees Davis and Kermit Holmes, Tony Martin, Terry Mullins and Damon Patterson. ”Basically,” Tubbs remembers, ”we did all the same things we did in the past, but we had to keep changing people`s positions. It was a matter of finding out where they played best, and where we needed players most.”
So the 6-foot-7-inch Henry was tried at off-guard and both forward positions, and the 6-7 Patterson was tried at center and both forward positions. The 6-8 Jones was tried at all three front-line positions, and the 6-1 Evans was tried at both point and off-guard.
Yet even as Tubbs tinkered and auditioned nine starting lineups, his Sooners won and hovered in or around the Top 10. That should have been fair warning of what would come once he completed his puzzle, which he has now done as this season nears its March crescendo. McCovery is at the point, backed by Evans, and Henry is at off-guard, ready to move back up front if foul trouble strikes. The 6-6 Davis is firmly installed at center, and flanking him are Patterson at small forward and Jones at power.
Those six, along with four other Sooners, now average double-figure minutes, and all six but Evans average double figures in scoring as well (and he is at 9.9). They may be undersized and their shooting eyes sometimes go blind, but all of them can run, all of them can jump, and-when unleashed as they were against Kansas-the given five of the moment can swirl about the court with all the insistency of a whirlpool.
”I think,” Davis says, ”that this has been a lot more enjoyable (than last year), working ourselves up the way we have. Plus last year we had two All-Americans to go to, so this has been more of a team effort. Since everyone has put in effort to win, overall there is more pleasure on this team.”
”Yeah, it`s been a fun year. It`s been a challenge, and I think we had a lot to prove at the start of the year,” adds Tubbs. ”It was like when Wayman left, we were dead. When Stacey left, surely we were dead. So, yeah, we had something to prove, and it`s been fun, exciting, challenging. Sometimes you get a little more excited being the challenger.”
”Right now, it`s just the press that has us challenger,” Henry is saying minutes later.
Your coach says it too, he is immediately told.
”Ahhh, that`s the way coaches are,” he finally says. ”We know we`re a top five team, and that things can happen for us. If we keep our attitude, we know we have a legitimate shot at the national championship. That`s something I dream about. I dream every night of talking to you guys after we`ve won it, and saying, `I told you so.` ”
