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Monday, November 4
Updated: November 6, 10:00 AM ET
 
Sooners' identity shaped by Sampson's intensity

By Pete Thamel
Special to ESPN.com

NORMAN, Okla. -- In the waning minutes of practice at the Lloyd Noble Center on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Oklahoma center Jabahri Brown eyes a loose ball.

He angles his wiry 6-foot-10 frame away from the paint and takes two steps toward the top of the key before laying out a Pete Rose-esque dive at the ball.

Brown's head-first effort propels him past teammate Matt Gipson, and as he corrals the stray ball, his teammates swarm him.

At least nine players run over to congratulate him and help him off the floor, a scene usually reserved for a March buzzer beater, not an October hustle play.

OU head coach Kelvin Sampson then blows his whistle and ends practice, praising Brown for the type of play that gives the Sooners their black-and-blue identity.

Kelvin Sampson
Kelvin Sampson is quick to single out a Sooner who isn't giving his all in practice.

"He wouldn't make that play last year," Sampson proudly declares. "He'd dream up an injury, or get creative on some type of disease he'd have. I didn't know whether to be a coach or go get my microscope and see if I could get some bacteria samples."

Welcome to an Oklahoma practice, where Sampson's barbs fly as fast as the bodies hit the floor. It's afternoons of Sampson's incessant teaching, relentless motivation and grueling drills that have molded the Sooners' bloody knuckles reputation the past nine years. Don't think for a second that Sampson will tolerate any kind of toughness letdown coming off a 31-5 season and Final Four appearance. While the program's basketball profile has increased, its tolerance for soft players hasn't.

Sampson's still dishing out his favorite quips, calling soft guys "Parquet" and "Charmin." He's also still capping the baskets in practice with a plastic bubble that resembles a "moon crater" to run his hallmark drill.

In "The Bubble Drill" -- "We ain't very complicated," Sampson says -- every shot results in a rebound. Hence, the Oklahoma players crack into each other under the basket, with every rebound counting as a point.

On this day, Sampson runs a hybrid of the drill called the "War Bubble," with five players all stacked in the paint to tussle for rebounds. The first three players who grab four rebounds get to leave the floor. The final two must run wind sprints.

Sampson paces around the perimeter during the drill, imploring his team in his gravely voice. "We need to get every rebound," he screams, "every rebound."

The drill's inherent flying elbows and falls to the floor produce the most injuries.

"We're used to guys getting stitches at practice," says Brown. "It's normal. You're going to have bloody noses and stuff. That's going hard."

The players not in the drill surround the key on the baseline and sideline, clapping rhythmically and hollering constant encouragement. This day's Bubble Drill crescendo comes when Gipson lays out for a ball on the sideline to earn a critical point. Hollis Price, Blake Johnston and Quannas White all help him off the floor and offer the requisite pats on the word, "INTENSITY," which is sewn into the rear of all the players' practice shorts.

Sampson's strong belief that rebounding is a learned skill is the fundamental tenant of the drill. So he teaches it, day after day, bruise after bruise.

"A lot of us hate the Bubble Drill," says OU senior Jozsef Szendrei, "but we love it somewhere deep down. That's what got us where we are."

The nervous student managers that stand on edge throughout practice may provide the best evidence of the hum of intensity that carries through a Sampson practice. The managers race to see to who can bring Sampson a clipboard the quickest. They also towel up the sweats spots, and there's plenty because of all the floor diving, with the intensity and efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew.

Hard to blame them, considering that when senior manager Josh Moser fails to catch the bubble when he pops it off the rim at the end of the drill, Sampson makes him run a wind sprint.

It's that type of atmosphere that defines Sampson's practices. Consider that when he coached at Washington State he'd have the assistant coaches tape copy paper over the windows of the gym to signify a "lock down" practice mode. "Guys knew," says former Sampson assistant Jason Rabedeaux, "that there weren't going to be a whole lot of pats on the back that day."

In Sampson's first job at Montana Tech he made the players jump rope for hours, run miles up mountains in the thin air and execute defensive shuffles with bricks in their hands.

"They were hell," says former player Joe McClafferty, "but they prepare you for the rest of your life, whether you're going to be a basketball player or a stock broker."

Every Sampson practice has a theme, a greater message that he tries to hammer across to his team. On his ledger for practice No. 16, Sampson has written, "Surrender to the system, but never surrender to yourself."

It's a theme aimed at freshman DeAngelo Alexander, who hasn't completely bought into Sampson's program. At one point in practice, Sampson blows the whistle abruptly, sends his team to the baseline and berates Alexander.

"DeAngleo had a bad practice yesterday and now he's pouting," screamed Sampson. "He's playing like a little girl right now. Help him out, guys. Hollis, get his head out of his rear."

There's method to Sampson's diatribe, as there is to all of his practice techniques. He's picking especially hard on Alexander, a blue chip 6-foot-5 guard, because if he's ready to play this year, Sampson will redshirt senior Jason Detrick. That move, in turn, will ease the loss of White, Price and Ebi Ere, the Sooner's senior guard trio, after this season.

"DeAngelo is stuck in third gear," says Sampson. "He thinks he's playing hard, but he's still taking possessions off."

Sampson promises that as the days grow colder his whistle blows less and his voice tones down. He calls October a teaching month and November a reaction month.

"If you're talking a lot in January and Febraury, there's a problem," says Sampson. "December and January are for fine tuning. By February and March, that machine better be humming."

With a team that's surrendered to Sampson's time tested system, there's little doubt it will be. While practices shorten and Sampson runs the Bubble Drill less, the same principles of Oklahoma basketball will apply.

"Once conditioning started on Sept. 8 I told my girlfriend, 'Hey, I don't have as much time to hang out with you," says Szendrei. "I've got conditioning at 5:30 a.m., I gotta do this. It's a strict lifestyle. You've got to keep it. Hopefully, down in March and April, it'll all be worth it."

Pete Thamel is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com and ESPN Magazine. He's based in Bartlesville, Okla., where he's writing a book about NAIA basketball. His e-mail is vpthamel@yahoo.com.







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