Oklahoma's proposed sanctions will put the pressure on Lon Kruger

On Thursday afternoon, Oklahoma offered themselves up on the NCAA's chopping block for violations committed by assistant coach Oronde Taliaferro. If you've forgotten, Taliferro, through a financial advisor in Florida, orchestrated a payment of $3,000 to Keith "Tiny" Gallon in an effort to help Gallon pay for his high school transcripts so he can enroll in college.

Those violations led, in part, to Jeff Capel's firing as the head coach of the Sooners.

Here is what Oklahoma, who was already on probation thanks to Kelvin Sampson and his phone calls, is proposing:

Oklahoma asked the NCAA to place the program on two more years of probation, vacate its wins from a 13-18 season in 2009-10 and take away one scholarship, two official visits and 10 in-person recruiting days during the upcoming academic year.

Losing a scholarship is not a huge deal in college basketball. Teams often don't use their full allotment of 13 scholarships, and if they do, that final scholarship player is usually a walk-on that gets lucky. The recruiting sanctions -- losing two official visits and 10 in-person recruiting days -- is just as trivial. Its not an ideal situation, but its essentially a glorified slap on the wrist. And I'm not going to get into another rant about how pointless it is to vacate a season, particularly a season that everyone in Norman is more than willing to forget.

The only punishment with any juice that Oklahoma offered up is the two extra years of probation, a sanction that the program has already violated.

Considering that the Sooners qualify as repeat violators -- two major infractions in five years -- its tough for me to believe that the NCAA is going to accept their proposal. Then again, the NCAA also believes vacating a season is a major punishment, so who knows.

The only thing that I know is that the start of the Lon Kruger era in Oklahoma just got that much tougher.

I agree with Matt Norlander. Kruger had to have known that something like this was coming when he agreed to leave UNLV this spring (well, that and he doubled his old salary for the next seven years). Because as trivial as some of the sanctions that Oklahoma proposed are, their effect will get magnified by the fact that Kruger has to rebuild an Oklahoma program that has spent the past two seasons buried at the bottom of the Big 12 and isn't expected to go anywhere soon.

Convincing blue-chip recruits to be the foundation in a rebuilding process is difficult enough. Having to do so with limits on recruiting makes it that much harder. Kruger -- who will make $16.6 million over the next seven years -- has to be efficient in his recruiting. He has to find players that he has a realistic shot of getting and that can positively effect the program, and he has to make sure that those players end up at Oklahoma.

More than anything, these sanctions are going to make Kruger's margin for error microscopic.
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Tiny Gallon speaks about the NCAA investigation

We've all heard about the allegations involving Tiny Gallon and Oklahoma.

In short, Gallon was wired $3,000 by a financial adviser in Florida. Former Oklahoma assistant coach Oronde Taliaferro's phone records show 41 calls and 25 texts between the two. Generally in situations like this, where there's smoke, there's fire, and there is enough smoke here for Gregg Doyel to call for Oklahoma's basketball program to get the death penalty.

Tiny Gallon finally spoke about the allegations he is facing.
(photo credit: NewsOK)

Gallon hadn't commented on the allegations until today, when he spoke with Adam Zagoria.

"Oak Hill wouldn't release my transcript under no circumstances and my mother had to do what she had to do," Gallon told Zagoria. "It wasn't an agent, it was a financial adviser. She got the money from him, got my transcript out of Oak Hill Academy. I got a single mother. When she got the money, she paid the financial adviser back through my freshmen year."

"Oak Hill gave my mother a bill for $3,000," Gallon said. "Until she paid, I couldn't go to school. It wasn't like I was getting the money and paying it to everybody. Three thousand dollars, that's nothing to get my transcript ... She paid the man back over the course of my freshman year."

Gallons also said that the scandal was the main reason he decided to leave school after his freshman season, in large part because of how long it was taking the NCAA to respond to him.

Gallon makes it seem as if this was a loan, which is very well may have been. But from what he is saying, it doesn't seem like this was anything official; I doubt his mother would have been able to get a loan via any legitimate means if she had accrued $3,000 in tuition payments. (According to a Zagoria source, Gallon's mother didn't pay her tuition bills all year long.)

And if this was simply a loan, there's no way that the relationship and phone calls between Taliaferro and the financial advisor were mutually exclusive events from the "loan". Its not a leap of faith to assume that Taliaferro orchestrated the money exchanging hands.

Regardless of what that money was used for, an assistant coach going through back channels to get $3,000 into a recruit's bank account is a pretty serious violation, even if it was done with the best of intentions.

As far as the NCAA investigation, Gallon said "I'm really not sure but shouldn't nothing happen."

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you there, Tiny.

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2010 NBA Draft Early Entrants: The biggest mistakes

The NBA Draft's Early Entry deadline came and went on Sunday. Today, we will provide you with a bit of fodder over how some of this year's decisions could sway the 2010-11 college basketball season. For a complete list of this year's crop of early entrants, click here.

The way I see it, there are four legitimate reasons for a player to leave school early:

1. He is ready. He is a lock to be a first round pick (its even better if he is projected to go higher than that) and get a guaranteed contract. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to develop at the NBA level. If you are able to develop while making a couple of million dollars instead of studying for exams, I say go for it.
2. Financial issues. If you are good enough to think that you have a shot of getting drafted, odds are in your favor that you are good enough to make money playing basketball somewhere. If a kid comes from a family in dire financial straits, every one should support his decision to become a professional.
3. He graduated. Like Derrick Brown last season and Eniel Polynice this year, if a player has earned his undergraduate degree, whether that is a result of redshirting a season or graduating in three years, I have no problem if he decides to go pro instead of using up his eligiblity as a grad student. Along those same lines, if a player is older than his class -- a 23 year old junior, for example -- I also think it makes sense to go pro. The older you get, the lower your ceiling for potential becomes.
4. He's a "hot" prospect. If a player's stock is high -- whether that is a result of outstanding potential (think Hassan Whiteside) or he simply had a great NCAA Tournament (think Joakim Noah after the first Florida title) -- but that player is a fraud, so to speak, then it makes sense to capitalize on that higher stock. As they say, you strike when the iron is hot.
   

For those of us that love the game of college basketball, there is nothing that we hate more than to see a kid that had a chance at becoming a star at this level waste his eligibility by declaring for the NBA Draft (and signing with an agent) before he is truly ready to leave. It happens far too often. What players made the biggest mistakes in this year's draft?


Tommy Mason-Griffin and Keith "Tiny" Gallon, Oklahoma, freshmen: Oklahoma had an incredibly disappointing season in '09-'10. Granted, no one was expecting the Sooners to win a national title, but with Willie Warren deciding to return for his sophomore season and the addition of two McDonald's all-american freshmen coming in, OU seemed like they were capable of, at the very least, competing amongst the best in the Big XII. For a variety of reasons, that didn't happen. And for a completely different set of reasons, both TMG and Gallon have entered the draft and hired agents.

Tiny and TMG both should have stayed at Oklahoma.
(photo credit: Red Dirt Sports)

Gallon's hand may have been forced. Thanks to a report by TMZ Sports that a financial advisor in Florida had funneled money to Gallon, he may not have had much of a say in the matter. Gallon is 6'9", an underwhelming athlete, heavier than the ideal is for NBA fours, and far too perimeter oriented for someone of his size. When he actually decided to play this year, he was far too willing to hoist jumpers and far too unwilling to throw his ample weight around on the block. The trend in the NBA these days is fours in the mold of a Lamar Odom or a Shawn Marion, not the second coming of Oliver Miller.

TMG is not much of an NBA prospect either. He is small, looks for his shot first, and didn't really start to show his talent until Warren and Gallon were firmly entrenched in the dog house. He does have some talent -- he can put up points in a hurry, he has deep range on his jumper, and he may have had the nastiest cross over in the country this past season -- but he seems better suited for the And-1 mixtape tour than he does for an NBA roster.


Courtney Fortson, Arkansas, sophomore: Like TMG, Fortson has enough talent to be a star at the collegiate level, but his game doesn't exactly translate to the NBA. He's quick, he has a nice handle, and he is capable of creating off the bounce. But he is also smaller than an ideal NBA point guard, he doesn't have a jump shot, and he is a poor decision maker both on the court and off of it. Between his off-the-court issues at Arkansas and his 5.1 t/o's per game (he averaged more turnovers than most point guards average assists), odds are good that Fortson doesn't get drafted and you never hear his name again.


Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati, freshman: I think we all knew this was coming, but that doesn't mean that "Born Ready" is ready for the league after one year. There is no questioning his talent or his ability to score, but there are quite a few aspects of Stephenson's game that could have made him a much more ideal prospect if he had the chance to work on them. In terms of being a one-on-one player, Stephenson's ability to create is impressive. But he doesn't quite understand when is the correct time to attack, shot selection, or the workings of help side defensively. And while that ability can be developed as a professional, it is unlikely that he lands a guaranteed contract. Wouldn't it make more sense to work on his game playing in the Big East, where he will be on national television and sportscenter regularly, than in the D-League or overseas?

Will Lance Stephenson go the way of Lenny Cooke?
(photo credit: BearcatsSportsPage)

AJ Ogilvy, Vanderbilt, junior: Ogilvy's biggest mistake may have been going back to school after his freshman season. There was a chance he would have been a first round pick in 2008, but since then he has done nothing to improve his profile as a potential pro. Yes, he is crafty in the post, he can rebound the ball, and he has a nice touch from the perimeter, but his flaws are still his flaws. He can't pass out of the post, he can't defend anyone, and he lacks a degree of toughness that he will need banging against NBA centers. In other words, Ogivly is still the same player he was two years ago, which is disconcerting for NBA teams. I'd be pretty shocked if he went in the first round.

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I hope the agent Tiny Gallon allegedly spoke with didn't advise him to create TinyGallon.com

Losing the Brothers-Griffin after last season, no one really expected Oklahoma to be primed to make another Final Four.

But bringing back Willie Warren and Tony Crocker and teaming them with a decent group of role players and a star-studded class of freshman made for a lot of optimism around Norman.

That last for all of two games, as the Sooners lost to VCU, San Diego, and Houston in the first few weeks of the season. They headed into Big XII play with five losses, and immediately dropped their league opener to Baylor by 31 points.

There's actually a TinyGallon.com
(photo credit: TinyGallon.com)

After getting drubbed by Oklahoma State 97-76 today, the Sooners have now lost two in a row, three of four, and five of their last seven.

And believe it or not, it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Willie Warren was supposed to compete for national player of the year, he's been in and out of the line-up as he's dealt with leadership issues and a pretty severe ankle injury. Then on Saturday, Warren never even made the trip to Stillwater.

Why?

He has mono, which means he will be out for an extended period of time.

Tiny Gallon didn't play either. Gallon was expected to be the heir-apparent to Griffin in the pivot, but the 6'9", 275 lb, Gallon's affinity for perimeter play has limited his effectiveness. Currently averaging just 10.4 ppg and 8.0 rpg, Gallon was recently relegated to coming off the bench in favor of Ryan Wright.

Word leaked out prior to the 2pm tip that Gallon had been suspended indefinitely, and OUHoops.com thinks they know why:

Sources tell OUHoops.com that Gallon’s suspension was due to concerns over improper contact with an agent prior to the beginning of the season.

So there's that.

Anyway, I think its a long shot that Warren or Gallon is back in Norman next season. With Crocker and Wright graduating, Jeff Capel better hope that Tommy Mason-Griffin doesn't leave. If he does, the Sooners may be in for a few rebuilding years.
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Tiny Gallon breaks a backboard

Last night was New Year's Eve, and as is tradition, I spent the night consuming large quantities of beer, food, and alcohol. And singing this.

Safe to say, I was no where near a TV. Thankfully, I have TiVo, which means that I'm working off my Hangover by sitting on my couch, eating Chinese food, and boycotting the New Year's Day bowls by catching up on last night's games.

And as much as I appreciated USC's seventh straight win, or double OT out in Pullman, or Indiana toughing out a win over the Wolverines, the best part about last night came in Spokane Washington midway through the second half of Gonzaga's win over Oklahoma.

Tiny Gallon, who apparently made it a goal to prove the irony of his nickname, broke a back board.

And he didn't even finish the dunk.



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