Mens Basketball Holds First Practice of the Year

In preparation for its Labor Day weekend foreign trip to Costa Rica, the Oklahoma men's basketball team got a leg up on the majority of the country's squads when it held its first practice of the year at Lloyd Noble Center Monday at 6 a.m. The Sooners covered a variety of areas in the two-hour session on the arena's main floor, including shooting, ball-handling, loose-ball and charge drills, as well as transition defense and defensive slides. Head coach Kelvin Sampson's 12-man team also practiced offensive sets.

"I walked into practice this morning and noticed that seven of our 11 scholarship players are freshmen and sophomores," said Sampson with a smile on his face. "That's a lot of inexperience, but that's the purpose of making this trip (to Costa Rica) -- give these guys a semblance of how we do things, learn the system and figure out what Sooner Basketball is all about."

[ August 25th Practice Photos ]

Sampson said the season's first practice was different from those in past years because of the international rules that will be enforced during the team's four games this weekend.

"There are subtle differences," he said. "Instead of a 35-second clock we'll play with a 30-second clock. There's no such thing as an out-of-bounds play on the baseline -- everything is on the sideline. And the three-point line is 20-feet, six inches instead of 19-9. But we're not going to focus on the differences as much as make sure our kids understand things about our team and what we want to do. We won't have a lot of things implemented, but we'll be a stickler for details. I want us to defend and rebound. The players might not be that good at it right now, but that doesn't mean their effort can't be there."

Despite the early morning start, senior guard Jason Detrick said it was good to return to the court as a team.

"Six o-clock is nuts," began Detrick, "but it was fun to get out here with our team and practice for the first time. It feels like it's the middle of the season already with how hard we went. It really meant a lot to me to get out here on the court because I sat out last season and because this is my last year."

The OU roster is comprised of two seniors (Jabahri Brown and Detrick), a pair of juniors (Johnnie Gilbert and Jaison Williams), two sophomores (De'Angelo Alexander and Kevin Bookout) and six freshmen (Brandon Foust, Andrew Lavender, Lawrence McKenzie, Kellen Sampson, Jimmy Tobias and redshirt Larry Turner).

Oklahoma, which returns to the court for a 4 p.m. practice Monday, will play two games on Saturday in Costa Rica and two more on Sunday before returning to Norman on Monday. Competition will include teams from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Brazil. Team practice won't begin again until Oct. 18.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Mens Basketball Holds First Practice of the Year

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