I miss Blake Griffin

I have to say, I was REALLY disappointed Blake Griffin got hurt on Saturday night and couldn't play tonight against Kansas. Everyone in the media is pretty enamored of him and I don't disagree in the slightest. He is not only a beast in the post, he's a great passer and creates a lot of offense for his teammates just by his presence. He's one of those players that completely changes the game just by being on the floor--it's pretty awesome. That being said, I'm a HUGE fan of Oklahoma as a whole this season. I am putting them in my Final Four and I don't care who knows it.

Yes, they lost to Kansas tonight...they struggled to make free throws (a well-documented pet peeve of mine) and turned the ball over way too much...but that being said, I think what gets lost in "The Blake Griffin Show" is that even without him, this is a REALLY good team. Not AS good as with Blake of course, but definitely solid. They have great perimeter shooting, strong defense, and they put their noses to the grindstone tonight and crashed the boards like it was going out of style. They definitely need his talent to get them farther, but they also aren't used to being without him. I'm willing to bet that if they had to go Griffin-less for an extended period of time, they would still definitely win a lot of games. But hopefully he should be back and healthy and this isn't even an issue we will need to debate.

Kansas really tightened up their defense after going down by 14 and made a really impressive comeback. Right now, they are gunning for a pretty high seed, which is frankly, unexpected (at least to me, but hey, I'm no expert). Another reason why Kansas pulled out the win? Sherron Collins decided to go off in the second half and shoot the lights out of the gym. Ridic. Kansas really seems to be hitting their stride, but it will be interesting to see how they fair in the tournament. They are obviously a good team, but the Big 12 isn't the TOUGHEST of conferences...time will tell. But they definitely play hard.


PS--Props to Cade Davis of Oklahoma. The kid came off the bench and hit 3 consecutive three-pointers to keep Oklahoma in the game late in the 2nd half.