14. Oklahoma State
The Cowboys may be small, but they figure that by season's end they'll be standing tall as Big 12 champs
Posted: Wednesday November 18, 1998 01:55 PM
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Peterson has gotten little exposure, but his game is the
Big 12's
best. Manny Millan |
Eddie
and Patsy Sutton celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in
June, which meant two things: The Suttons got to spend a
night at the White House (in the Lincoln Bedroom, no less),
and Eddie got to play golf with the President, an old buddy
from the days
when Sutton coached at Arkansas in the late '70s and early
'80s. As they rolled down the fairway at the Army-Navy
Country Club, the Prez got down to business. "So how
does your team look?" he asked. Replied Sutton,
"We'd be the best
6'6"-and-under team in the
country."
The graduation of
6'11" pivotman Brett Robisch has made the Cowboys lineup
look even smaller, but all the other starters from last
year's team return, which scared the devil out of Duke
before losing by six in the second round of the NCAAs.
Oklahoma State's unknown soldier
is Adrian Peterson, a
6'4" senior guard who, almost entirely without national
recognition, has become the best player in the
Big 12.
Sutton switched to a three-guard offense last year, and
Peterson had more rebounds (193) than in his previous two
seasons combined (186), although he gave his coach fits by
sleepwalking through the first halves of games. "At
halftime Coach would always
come in and say, 'I don't know what's wrong with you, but we
need you to play right
now,'" says Peterson. "Then the second half would
come, and I'd do really well. I can't figure it
out."
He does figure to get plenty of help this year. Sutton
considers forward Desmond Mason the best athlete he has
ever coached—better even than Sidney
Moncrief—while the timely shooting of Joe Adkins last
year justified Sutton's change to the three-guard
attack. Ace distributor Doug Gottlieb handed out a
school-record 6.9 assists per game, but his shooting was so
bad (41.4% FG, 48.6% FT) that he worked with three coaches,
including Marquette's Mike Deane, over the summer to
improve his
touch.
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| STARTING LINEUP |
| POS. | HT. | CLASS | KEY STAT |
| SF Adrian Peterson* | 6'4" | Sr. | 17.7 ppg |
| PF Desmond Mason* | 6'6" | Jr. | 14.6 ppg |
| C Alex Webber | 6'10" | Jr. | 2.6 ppg |
| SG Joe Adkins* | 6'2" | Jr. | 12.6 ppg |
| PG Doug Gottlieb | 6'1" | Jr. | 6.9 apg |
'97-98 record: 22-7
Final rank (coaches' poll): unranked
*Returning starter
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Unfortunately for Sutton, though, the Big 12 isn't a
6'6"-and-under league. His starting center will be Alex
Webber, a
6'10" junior whose play has never quite recovered after
he underwent back surgery in February '97. If Webber
falters,
6'10" freshman Fredrik Jonzen from Uppsala, Sweden, will
get a shot. Neither will dominate, but will it make any
difference? "You win championships with guard play,
defense and rebounding," Gottlieb says, citing Arizona
and Kentucky as examples. "Look at
Kansas. They've depended on big men, but they get beat in
the tournament because their guards haven't been as good as
they used to
be."
That remark will probably end up on a bulletin board
one state to the north, home of the four-time defending
conference champion Jayhawks, whom Oklahoma State will
visit
on Feb. 22. No matter.
Gottlieb refuses to wear last year's Big 12 South Division
championship
ring for a reason. "That's
a
second-place ring,"
he says. "If there's any year Kansas is going
to be taken, this is the
year."
—Grant Wahl Top 25 | Rest of the Best
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