Sampson, Bookout & Gilbert Quotes

KANSAS CITY -- Oklahoma head coach Kelvin Sampson, senior forward Johnnie Gilbert and junior forward Kevin Bookout met with the press corps Wednesday at the annual Big 12 Conference Basketball Media Day in Kansas City.

The following is a transcript from the press conference...

MODERATOR: Oklahoma has arrived. They are up here, ready to go. Coach, we would like to let you introduce the players. Before we do, I want to remind everybody, please turn your cell phones off. Speak up so we can hear the questions. Coach, welcome.

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COACH SAMPSON: To my far left is Johnnie Gilbert, senior. Next to him is Kevin Bookout, sophomore (laughing). He has only played one year. Obviously, he is a sophomore.

MODERATOR: Any comments?

COACH SAMPSON: I think we are going to be better. I thought last year would be a little bit of a rebuilding year. It didn't surprise me. You lose a core group -- Hollis Price, Quannas White, Ebi Ere, Aaron McGhee, Selvy, all of those things. The Elite Eight, Final Four. That core group left and I thought last year's team would take a step back. I thought we would be pretty good.

Then we just had too many injuries. I think where injuries hurt you more than anywhere else (is in practice). Our practices last year were just awful. I am one of those old boys that like to practice. We get five on five and get our stuff in and see if it works.

Kevin's last day of practice (last year) was October 18th. His last game was, I think, the first of January. He never practiced any. He would do skeleton stuff the day before the game to introduce him to our little point guard, make sure he knew who the big kid was. That was about it. We never had any quality practices. I thought our team improved as the season went on and got better, but we had a low ceiling. We played about as good as we were going to play.

I think this year will be much improved, a lot more weapons, lot more things we can do. We have always had good teams, really good teams. This year's team, collectively up front, I like our front line. Our guards are still a little young. We will play four sophomores and a freshman somewhere in there, probably, but we will just be a better team, a lot more competitive this year.

Q. Kelvin, those injuries, were they in terms of scholarship players in practices or some guys had to be held out?

COACH SAMPSON: Both. Kevin, you and Johnnie correct me if I'm wrong, De'Angelo Alexander didn't start practice and got hurt in August and didn't practice until Thanksgiving. Jason Detrick got hurt over Labor Day weekend and didn't practice until after the exhibition game.

So, I mean, this time last year I didn't know anything about our team. I just knew we weren't very good. I knew that. I didn't know anything else. This year's guys, we are going to play with, I've seen them in practice. Last year I never saw them in October and November. When you start off behind the eight ball like that, it seems like you never get going. The biggest joke of the year last year was when we were 10-0. A good friend of mine, Charlie Spoonhour at UNLV, he saw us on TV and he said he didn't know what I was doing, but I should get the trickster of the year award. 'Boy, you are tricking them.'

We were 10-0, won at Michigan State, beat Purdue, Tulsa. But it eventually catches up with you. Had Kevin been healthy, that team would have been pretty good. We weren't going to be a one or two seed like in previous years, but we could have been a five or six, seven seed last year if things had gone right.

When you don't have a large margin of error, you need things to go right. This year if things go right, I think we will be pretty good.

Q. Kevin, are you going to be able to wave to the crowd this year?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: Yeah, if the shoulder is up to it. I won't be waving, I will be playing.

Q. How do you feel about your game right now? Are you back to where you want to be?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: I am excited to practice. It was the third day of practice last year when I got hurt, the second drill we were doing. Right now this is just like my freshman year. I am going out there excited every day and just trying to get better. That's what I try to do.

Q. Johnnie, you have been around a long time. Can you talk about the difference in the team now in terms of how it is, the makeup of several new guys, a lot of new guys, and just going into the season compared to two or three years ago?

JOHNNIE GILBERT: Two or three years ago I wasn't the leader of the group, so that's different for me. We have guys that they still don't understand what Sooner basketball is all about. Our coach is going to help mold them, how Coach Sampson wants us to play and things like that.

The big guys -- we have a lot of big guys, bodies and stuff. That's going to help out a lot. Also, we can run. We can run a lot this year. I think we are a faster team than in previous years.

Q. Kevin, at what point after the surgery did you feel like you were 100 percent again and ready to do anything?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: It was the middle of September. It was after Labor Day weekend in September that I actually got to go and play pick-up and go one-on-one in the post and just getting back into the groove of lifting, doing squats and bench press. Just doing all the little stuff like that I couldn't do all summer.

Q. Kevin, was there a moment or a point last year after the injury while you were playing that you just said, "I can't do this anymore"? Did it happen in a game? Was it just a progression of things?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: I just talked to Coach and the trainers and my parents. We kind of just decided if I did it right after the Texas Tech game, I could be ready and back for practice. I wanted to start practicing. Drew (Lavender) and Lawrence (McKenzie) and (Brandon) Foust, we never practiced before and never became a team. Our chemistry was off and timing and all those things that win ball games. That's what we needed to do. I thought if I did it then, then I would have plenty of time to recover and be ready when practice starts.

Q. Kevin, what percentage would you put on your health last year when you were playing? How much less than 100 percent were you?

COACH SAMPSON: A lot.

KEVIN BOOKOUT: Day by day. It felt good some days and awful some days. I just woke up and just kind of played it by ear and saw how I felt.

Q. Kevin, would you talk about Taj Gray and what impact he is going to have?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: I love playing with Taj Gray. We have had 12 practices. He gets after it. He is fun to play with, offensive, defensive rebound. He does a lot of little things I like being around. He gets after it and has energy. We complement each other well. I really like playing with him.

Q. How much did you guys miss Kevin last year?

COACH SAMPSON: Missing Kevin was a problem, but we also had too many freshmen that we had to count on. That was almost as big a problem. The two most consistent guys in our program are Johnnie and Kevin.

It is just Kevin's personality and his attention to detail. I keep going back to the practice thing. When you guys saw him on game night, that's what I saw of him, too. More importantly, that's when Lavender and McKenzie and Foust and Larry Turner, all those guys, that's when they saw him, too. They never got in the flow.

It would be like taking an impact player on any team on our league and tell them you can't practice, you can only play come game time. You only hope it goes well that night. We tricked them for a while. Kevin's shoulder through October, he didn't practice any at all. He didn't play in the exhibition games. We didn't know if he was going to have surgery or not.

He kept asking the doctor if he needs surgery now, let's go ahead and do it. The doctor's opinion was he doesn't need surgery, let's see if we can get it stable enough so he can get through the year and do surgery at the end of the year. That was the plan, but then we were 10-0 and had a brutal stretch. We had to go to Connecticut, to Oklahoma State, Missouri was picked to win the league, and to Texas Tech. And it was right in the middle of that you could tell he wasn't going to make it.

Q. Johnnie, how lonely were you on the court without Kevin last year?

JOHNNIE GILBERT: I was very lonely without my comrade. I miss this big guy right here (arm around Bookout and laughing). I like playing with Kevin, man. I love being around him. He is a great guy.

Q. You are such a role player and do your role well. Were you asked to do different things?

COACH SAMPSON: I asked him to score 20 points, and he never did it.

Q. Kelvin, how much better are those four freshmen now and where does Taj (Gray) fit into the mix? How do you see him?

COACH SAMPSON: You are asking me? You keep calling us both Kevin.

Q. That's East Texas. They are soft Ls.

COACH SAMPSON: I know what you are saying. You know, it's hard to say. I think that they are improved. Lavender, you know, he can't be your leading scorer. His game is not set up to be your leading scorer. It would be like Aaron Miles being Kansas' leading scorer. There is a problem. Other guys should be the leading scorer. He is the set-up guy. Lavender can score. I still think he will average 8-10 points a game, but that shouldn't lead you. If he is leading, that's a problem, which takes us back to last year. It was a problem. They are bigger and stronger and more confident. I think they have better leadership around them. Johnnie and Kevin -- you can elect a captain, but you can't elect a leader. Leaders aren't inherent to the word. You have to earn that title.

But ultimately leadership has to come inside out. You know, if it's going outside in, there is usually a problem. But I thought that the adversity we had last year was a positive for these guys. Sometimes you learn through adverse situations more so than you do when it's going great.

Freshmen shouldn't have to play major roles on really good teams. If they are, that team isn't going to be really good. Juniors and seniors should play the dominant role, unless you have a Carmelo Anthony, and I haven't seen one of those.

Obviously, we will know better after the 10th and 13th. I like our team.

Q. Taj?

COACH SAMPSON: Eduardo Najera, Aaron McGhee -- we have had some big guys that could play, really good players. Aaron McGhee's senior year, he was offensively as good as any post guy in the country, bar none. We don't have a post guy as good as Aaron McGhee, but collectively this is the best post group I have ever had. They are all pretty good. Maybe not a great player in the mix.

Taj's greatest strength is when the ball is shot, he thinks it's his. He is relentless, tough, hard-nosed. He is getting better through practice every day. Johnnie was talking about it earlier, at practice every day. Larry Turner is 6-11, 250. He can bench press a small apartment building, but at some point he is going to catch it and put it in the hole. Longar Longar, Johnnie, Kevin, Taj, our practices are good. They play against each other every day. That's making them all better.

Q. Coach, I think you finished like 3 points behind (third-place) Texas (in the preseason coaches poll). Do you see yourself that close to the top three in the Big 12?

COACH SAMPSON: I don't know how to judge the other teams. Where did we finish last year? Last year might be skewing my answer. It just depends. I think the top two are pretty clear based on what those teams have back. I think Oklahoma State and Kansas are going to be really good. We are a little bit of a mystery.

If we stay healthy, and this is the first year I have said that, but if we stay healthy, we are going to be okay. I don't know how it relates to the top three teams, but we can play with them.

Q. Kevin, from what I understand your injury was a gradual thing and was not one impact. When was your shoulder this healthy -- high school days?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: The first incident was when I was a freshman in high school. I did it at an AAU game. I didn't have any more of those separations until I was a freshman here at OU. I had a couple here, and I had one lifting one time, and I had the big one whenever it was in practice. But, I mean, it has been gradual, from throwing the shot and disc, and from baseball and doing all those other little things.

COACH SAMPSON: Paul Bunyan.

Q. So it has been 6, 7 years?

KEVIN BOOKOUT: Probably since I was a freshman. When it gets hit in practice right now, it doesn't move. I just love the feeling of it.

MODERATOR: Time for one last question.

Q. Kelvin, any other new faces that are going to figure prominently?

COACH SAMPSON: Terrell Everett is going to help us, too. He played at the same junior college that Jaison did. He is a left-handed. He is a long 6'4", slithery, can make plays off the dribble. I think that our greatest improvement is going to come at the defensive end.

Last year our offensive problems were well-chronicled, and definitely we agreed about everything that was said about the offensive problems. We have always been a team that got a lot of offense from our defense.

We could generate some offense by getting it off the glass and going. If you are taking the ball out of the net most of the time, it's hard to score, especially when teams are back set. We are just going to be a much improved team. I like coaching this team and I like their attitudes. We have easy kids to coach, good kids.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Coach and the players. We wish you the best of luck.

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Kevin Bookout, Jr., F, 6-8, 259, Stroud, Okla.
Started in the first 13 games before opting for season-ending surgery on his right shoulder. Averaged 7.6 points and a team-high 5.5 rebounds in addition to leading the Sooners with his .516 field goal percentage. Started in 33 games as a rookie and was named to the 2002-03 Big 12 All-Freshman Team.

Johnnie Gilbert, Sr., F, 6-8, 228, Minneapolis, Minn.
Has 111 career blocked shots to rank fifth on school's all-time list. Averaged 5.3 points, 4.0 re

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