Second Exhibition Friday Night

Nov. 1, 2007

NORMAN, Okla. -- The Oklahoma men's basketball team plays its second and final exhibition game of 2007 when it hosts NCAA Division II opponent Fayetteville (N.C.) State Friday night inside Lloyd Noble Center.

The contest is scheduled to tip at 7:08 p.m. CST and will air on the Sooner Radio Network (flagship KRXO 107.7 FM in Oklahoma City) with Bob Barry Sr. and Mike Houck announcing. A live webcast of the game will be available for viewing on the subscription-based "All-Access" section of OU's official athletics site, SoonerSports.com.

GAME SPECIFICS
Date: Friday, Nov. 2
Site: Norman, Okla. (Lloyd Noble Center)
Tip: 7:08 p.m. CT
Radio: Sooner Radio Network (Flagship KRXO 107.7 FM in OKC)
TV: None
Webcast: SoonerSports.com "All-Access" (subscription required)
Series: First meeting

FREE FOR OU STUDENTS
OU students who present a valid school I.D. will be admitted to Friday's game free of charge (west entrance).

TICKET INFORMATION
Upper-level reserved seats are available for $10 (north and south) and $15 (east and west) at the OU Athletics Ticket Office (800-456-4668). Lloyd Noble Center ticket windows will open at 5:30 p.m. on Friday.

Game Notes PDF | First Exhibition Recap | Ticket Information

"NOTE" WORTHY
• Fayetteville State is an NCAA Division II program in North Carolina that competes in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. It is also the alma mater of OU head coach Jeff Capel's parents (Jeff and Jerry).
• Oklahoma is 38-2 in exhibition games over the past 20 seasons.
• The Sooners return 61 percent of their scoring, 70 percent of their rebounding and 66 percent of their assists from last year.
• The Sooners' Nov. 8 regular season opener against San Francisco will mark the earliest ever by a Big 12 Conference team.
• OU held opponents to 59.6 points a game last year, the lowest figure since the 1977-78 season (a span of 29 years).
• Oklahoma has won 98 of its last 109 games inside Lloyd Noble Center (not including exhibition contests).

FAYETTEVILLE STATE PROJECTED STARTERS (stats from last year)
F 22 Jay Malcolm (6-7, 210, Jr.)
F 34 Larry Ross (6-7, 210, So., 1.0 ppg, 1.1 rpg)
G 3 Darshawn Johnson (6-4, 200, Jr.)
G 5 Andy Gebru (6-4, 200, Jr., 16.6 ppg, 3.7 rpg)
G 14 Jamel Austin (6-3, 180, Sr., 8.6 ppg, 3.2 apg)

OKLAHOMA PROJECTED STARTERS (stats from last year)
F 23 Blake Griffin (6-10, 243, Fr.)
C 30 Longar Longar (6-11, 234, Sr., 10.4 ppg, 7.1 rpg)
G 5 Tony Crocker (6-6, 193, So., 8.6 ppg, 3.7 rpg)
G 15 David Godbold (6-5, 221, Sr., 7.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg)
G 20 Austin Johnson (6-3, 165, Jr., 7.0 ppg, 1.8 rpg)

SOONERS WIN EXHIBITION OPENER
Oklahoma beat NCAA Division II Rockhurst University on Wednesday, 93-58, in Norman behind a strong shooting effort. The Sooners knocked down 62.3 percent of their shots on the game and at one point in the second half were shooting at a 75.0 clip (24-for-32).

McDonald's High School All-American Blake Griffin was 8-for-11 from the field and led OU with 19 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes of play. Six of his buckets were dunks. The freshman forward added three assists and was 3-for-4 at the free throw line. Sophomore guard Tony Crocker, who missed the team's Labor Day weekend exhibition trip to Canada with a leg injury, was 6-for-7 from the floor and scored 17 points. Crocker made all three of his 3-point tries.

Also perfect from behind the 3-point arc (4-for-4) was junior Austin Johnson. The guard netted 12 points and recorded six assists with a turnover. Like Crocker, Johnson missed OU's Canada trip due to an injury. Point guard Omar Leary, a first-team junior college All-American last year, came off the bench to register nine points and three assists in his first Lloyd Noble Center appearance. Senior center Longar Longar (3-for-3 from the floor and five assists with no turnovers) and junior forward Taylor Griffin (3-for-4 from the field and two blocks) finished with eight points apiece.

OU led 18-16 seven minutes into the game before a 21-4 run over the next six minutes made the score 39-20. The Sooners shot .704 from the field in the first half before settling for a .538 second-half figure. OU outscored Rockhurst 34-12 in the paint.

Random Fact: OU has recorded 26 consecutive winning seasons, more than any other Big 12 program.

PREVIEWING THE FAYETTEVILLE STATE BRONCOS

Fayetteville State, an NCAA Division II program in Fayetteville, N.C., posted a 15-13 record last year and finished 11-9 in the 10-team Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, good for a first-place tie in the Western Division. The Broncos, who are picked to finish in second place in their division this year, return 46 percent of their scoring and 32 percent of their rebounding. Nine of the 15 players on the roster are newcomers. FSU shot .436 from the field last year, .355 from 3-point range and .685 from the free throw line. The team is coached by Sam Hanger.

Junior guard Andy Gebru led Fayetteville State and ranked 11th in the CIAA in scoring last year by averaging 16.3 points. He paced the Broncos with his 72 3-pointers (nobody else made more than 35) and shot .385 from beyond the arc. Gebru also averaged 3.7 rebounds and 1.4 steals. Senior guard Jamel Austin averaged 8.6 points and team highs of 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals a year ago. He was also a .864 free throw shooter. Another guard, senior Phillip Harris, averaged 6.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals. Harris also shot .348 from 3-point range (32-for-92).

OKLAHOMA-FAYETTEVILLE STATE CONNECTIONS
Two members of Oklahoma's coaching staff have strong ties to Fayetteville State University:
• OU head coach Jeff Capel's parents (Jeff and Jerry Capel) attended Fayetteville State. His father later began his collegiate head coaching career at FSU and guided the Broncos to a 64-51 record over four seasons (1990-93).
• Capel's maternal grandfather, Page Saunders, was the head tennis coach and an assistant football coach at FSU.
• Fayetteville State's Felton J. Capel Arena is named after the paternal grandfather of OU's head coach.
• Oklahoma assistant coach Mark Cline began his coaching career as an assistant at Fayetteville State under Capel's father. He also served as the men's golf coach and was named CIAA Coach of the Year after each of his his team's two conference titles.

EARLY START
Oklahoma's Nov. 8 season opener against San Francisco in the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic will mark the earliest game in school history. In fact, with the 2K Sports Classic second round scheduled for the following day, the Sooners will get two games under their belt earlier in the calendar than they've ever played one.

Additionally, the contest will mark the earliest ever played by a Big 12 Conference men's basketball team.

Last year's Nov. 10 OU opener against Norfolk State had been the earliest game played by the Sooners, while Texas (last season) and Kansas (in 2000-01) both started a campaign on Nov. 9.

FOUR AND OH, CANADA
The Sooners got an early jump on the 2007-08 season by virtue of their three-day, four-game tour of the Vancouver, B.C., area Sept 1-3. OU posted a 4-0 record, winning at the University of British Columbia (81-62), Simon Fraser (86-57), Trinity Western (107-58) and Douglas College (90-61) by an average of 31.5 points.

Four Sooners averaged double figures in points, paced by true freshman Blake Griffin's 18.8 scoring average (in just 19.8 minutes per game). Senior Longar Longar, (14.5 ppg), freshman Cade Davis (11.3) and sophomore Keith Clark (10.0) also averaged double figures in scoring. Griffin, who is the younger brother of OU junior Taylor Griffin, also averaged a team-high 9.0 rebounds per contest and shot a team-best .609 from the field. Full cumulative stats are on page 5 of these game notes.

A pair of guards who started the majority of OU's games last year did not make the trip. Junior Austin Johnson and sophomore Tony Crocker stayed in Oklahoma due to injuries. Their absence meant more playing time for newcomer guards Davis, Omar Leary and Tony Neysmith. Leary, a junior college All-American, averaged 7.3 points and 3.0 assists while Neysmith, a freshman, contributed 7.0 points and 3.0 assists per outing.

OU OPENS REGULAR SEASON WITH 2K SPORTS COLLEGE HOOPS CLASSIC
Oklahoma begins the regular season Nov. 8-9 in the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefitting Coaches vs. Cancer as one of the event's four regional hosts. The Nov. 8 first round will see Denver take on East Central (Okla.) at 4:30 p.m. and the Sooners meet San Francisco at 7 p.m. First-round losers will face each other Nov. 9 at 4:30 while first-round winners will play at 7.

If OU wins its two regional games, it will travel to New York City for Nov. 15 and 16 championship round games inside Madison Square Garden. Other regional hosts (and potential opponents in New York) include Memphis (ranked No. 3 in the preseason coaches poll), Kentucky (No. 22) and Connecticut. The New York games will be televised by ESPN2.

THE MOOSE IS LOOSE
Sophomore forward Keith Clark is back for his sophomore season after torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his right knee on Dec. 28, 2006, against SMU ended his freshman campaign. Clark averaged 3.8 points and 2.3 rebounds in 12.2 minutes a game prior to his injury and, according to head coach Jeff Capel, was starting to come into his own when he got hurt.

The 6-8, 242-pound Oklahoma City product, who was ranked as the nation's No. 57 overall player by Rivals.com his senior year in high school, was cleared for full activity the first week of July and showed no ill-effects from the injury during OU's exhibition opener Wednesday against Rockhurst. Against the Hawks, Clark played 20 minutes and logged six points, three rebounds and an assist. He was 2-for-6 from the field with all but one attempt coming from beyond the 3-point line.

ALL IN THE FAMILY
For the first time since the 2004-05 school year, brothers Taylor and Blake Griffin will play on the same competitive team this year. Separated by two years, the pair prepped together under their father (Tommy Griffin) at Oklahoma Christian School during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons and won two state titles together.

Taylor, a junior forward, averaged 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds a game last year for the Sooners, while Blake, a freshman forward who won four state high school championships at OCS, was a McDonald's All-American last year and is regarded as one of the top collegiate newcomers in the country.

TALIAFERRO JOINS STAFF
Oronde Taliaferro, who spent the past four years as an assistant coach at Arkansas, was hired in May to replace Rod Barnes. Barnes left the program last spring to become the head coach at Georgia State.

The 35-year-old Taliaferro, who grew up in Detroit, Mich., but was always an Oklahoma basketball and football fan in part because of trips to visit family in Oklahoma City, said it was great to get on the OU practice court when the team began preparations for its Labor Day Weekend trip to Canada.

"It was a great feeling. Growing up, I didn't expect I'd wind up here. It's kind of like a homecoming, so to speak, considering I grew up watching so many OU games and having family here. It's a weird feeling, but it's a good feeling. It probably means more to me because of my attachment to the city and to some of the history."

Taliaferro, who was an assistant coach at Kent State when it reached the NCAA Tournament's 2002 Elite Eight, was labeled by Rivals.com in 2006 as one of the nation's top 25 recruiters.

HOME IS WHERE THE "W" IS
Lloyd Noble Center has been overly kind to the Sooners, as they have won 43 of the last 49 games and 98 of the last 109 in the building. OU is 410-69 (.856) in the building since it opened for the 1975-76 campaign. The Sooners have posted home winning streaks of 51 games (1987-90) and 37 games (2001-03). The 37-game streak is a Big 12 Conference record (the league's first year was in 1996-97).

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Related News

Related Videos

Sponsors