Tramel's ScissorTales: Why Oklahoma State's Kalib Boone brings up memories of Leroy Combs
Leroy Combs came walking down the Lloyd Noble Center tunnel Wednesday night before the Bedlam basketball game, and my mind quickly drifted back to 42 years earlier.
February 1981. Combs and I shared the same Lloyd Noble Center tunnel. I was a 20-year-old writer; he was an OSU sophomore center.
The Cowboys had just thrashed OU 100-88, winning in Norman for the first time in 16 years, and Combs was enjoying the celebration, after having thrashed the Sooners for 37 points and 14 rebounds.
Eventually, I left the tunnel Wednesday night and made my way to press row. Less than four minutes into the game, OSU center Kalib Boone had made a nifty pass to teammate Woody Newton for a layup, wheeled for a basket in the lane, made two foul shots after a cut to the rim, drove for yet another field and finally had scored again on a twisting move past OU center Tanner Groves.
Eight points. One assist. A 10-2 lead in what became a 71-61 Cowboy victory.
And the thought hit me early. Kalib Boone looks like Leroy Combs on a basketball court.
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Sitting behind the OSU bench, Combs thought the same thing.
“I really like the way he plays,” said Combs, now 62 and coaching basketball at Capitol Hill High School. “Toward end of last year and this year is when I really started to notice it. In the last year and a half or so, I’ve seen him notch it up.”
Boone didn’t dent the Sooners for 37 points and 14 rebounds. Boone settled for 18 points and four rebounds, in only 17 minutes. Mike Boynton has settled into a rotation with Boone and 7-foot-1 Mousse Cisse, who also had 18 points against OU and duplicated Boone’s 8-of-10 shooting.
Combs didn’t have a teammate like Cisse. Combs played 30.9 minutes a game as a sophomore and 36.8 as a senior. It was a different time.
But the Combs/Boone comparison is striking. Combs was listed at 6-foot-8, Boone is listed at 6-9. Both 2x4 thin. Both jump-out-of-the-gym ability. Both skilled around the basket. Both Oklahomans (Combs from Star Spencer, Boone from Tulsa Memorial).
Combs finds more similarities.
“I was a little surprised that he’s pretty good with his left hand,” Combs said. “He can finish around the basket left-handed, and he goes to it. I’d go to mine.
“And his tenacity is unreal. He really wants it. He seems to have that knack.”
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Boone doesn’t have much of an outside shot. Neither did Combs, when he went to the NBA, as the 26th overall pick in 1983 draft. Combs said his advice to Boone is return to OSU for another season and work on that shot.
Combs also was a shot blocker – 167 for his career. Boone is up to 135. They rank fifth and ninth, respectively, in OSU history.
Combs and Boone deviate in one major way. Combs as a sophomore already was a major force; he averaged 16.4 points a game and 8.2 rebounds a game while shooting 55.1 percent from the field. This is Boone’s senior season but his first averaging double-digit points (11.4).
OSU basketball was different in Combs’ day. This was pre-Eddie Sutton, so expectations were low. In 1981, OSU’s only winning season since 1965, Henry Iba’s final Big Eight championship team, had come in 1969-70, a 14-12 record in Iba’s last season.
But those 1980-81 Cowboys under Paul Hansen went 18-9, 8-6 in the Big Eight. Two years later, with Combs and fellow Oklahoma City products Matt Clark and Lorenza Andrews leading the way, OSU ended its NCAA Tournament drought.
And that night in Norman, February 24, 1981, was a major milestone.
Combs still remembers all kinds of things about that game.
Running downcourt in the final minute, with 37 points on his ledger, and his mother holding up three fingers. She wanted him to get 40.
The Cowboys cutting down the nets, with senior Randy Wright grabbing one and Clark the other.
The sellout crowd of 10,856, the first in the Billy Tubbs era, headed to the exits early, just like Wednesday night.
A spectacular Combs dunk off a high lob pass, what Combs still calls the “in-your-face-Lester-Pace dunk,” referring to the OU center who fouled out on the play but scored 20 points.
Combs, who won three state championships at Star Spencer and would go on to play a season with the Indiana Pacers in the NBA, never had a game like that night at Lloyd Noble Center.
Combs scored 25 points in the second half; 15 in the final 10 minutes.
“Leroy was just super,” Hansen said that night. “As goes Leroy, so goes Hansen.”
You got better quotes in those days. Like this one, from Tubbs, in his first Sooner season.
“I always thought Leroy Combs was a great center,” Tubbs said. “I like the way he jumps, and he has a good touch around the basket. But hey, it didn’t take 37 points to convince me. He could have impressed me with 20.”
Times have changed. Now it takes two centers, Boone and Cisse, to get close (36) to Combs’ 37 points in Bedlam.
But 42 years after Combs’ big night, Boone looked very much the same in another Bedlam.
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Thunder’s all-star tradition continues
Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook made the 2016 NBA All-Star Game – both were starters for the Western Conference. It was Durant’s seventh all-star selection in Oklahoma City, Westbrook’s fifth.
Five months later, you know what happened. Durant bolted for the Warriors, the Thunder’s competitive future was in jeopardy, Westbrook was considered possible trade bait and OKC’s status as a city of superstars appeared over.
In related news, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named Thursday as a Western Conference all-star, giving the Thunder five distinctive all-stars in the last eight seasons.
Durant. Westbrook. Paul George. Chris Paul. SGA.
The era of OKC superstars was not over. It barely was interrupted. The previous two years, SGA has been blossoming into the efficient mega-scorer he is today. And that’s it. That’s the extent of the Thunder’s drought.
In that time span, only Boston and Cleveland have had more all-stars than has the Thunder.
The Celtics have had Isaiah Thomas, Al Horford, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
The Cavaliers have had LeBron James, Kevin Love, Irving, Jarrett Allen, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell.
Seven NBA franchises – the Bucks, Knickerbockers, Wizards, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Nuggets and Trail Blazers – never have had five all-stars in an eight-season span.
This is a remarkable run for Oklahoma City. A credit to Sam Presti’s ability to keep the talent flowing, but also a credit to the Thunder business side, OKC’s corporate sector and the fans who keep the basketball economy churning in a small market.
Presti used an advantageous lottery pick (No. 2) to get Durant, used a sharp eye for talent to draft Westbrook at No. 4, used a great trade to get George for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo (who both made all-star teams with Indiana), traded Westbrook to get Paul, and finally traded George to get Gilgeous-Alexander (and five first-round draft picks that, who knows, could produce future all-stars?).
So the Thunder all-star collection was assembled in a variety of ways.
Oklahoma is the beneficiary. The Thunder has had an all-star selection in 12 of the last 14 seasons. Only three Thunder seasons – 2008-09, 2020-21, 2021-22 – have gone without an all-star.
The NBA experience is entertaining on a variety of fronts. A title-contending team tops that list, and the Thunder has had its share of those.
But also entertaining is top-shelf, doing things on a basketball court that only 20-25 people on Earth can do.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is in that group, continuing a tradition that looks far from ending.
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NET rankings boost Cowgirls
OU’s women’s basketball team is ranked 20th in The Associated Press poll and 17th in the coaches poll. OSU received nary a vote in either poll.
The Sooners are 17-4 overall; the Cowgirls are 15-7. OU is 7-3 in the Big 12; the Cowgirls are 5-5.
In their only meeting, on January 21, the Sooners beat OSU 97-93 in Norman.
But in the NET rankings (NCAA Evaluation Tool), OSU is No. 44 and is OU No. 45.
The women’s basketball committee uses the NET as its guidepost, same as the men’s basketball committee, to gauge the quality of wins and losses. The women’s NET isn’t exactly the same as the men’s NET – each uses algorithms particular to their sport. And while the men’s NET rankings come complete with a breakdown of record vs. four distinctive quads (Quad 1 being the toughest games, Quad 4 being the easiest games), the women’s NET rankings do not.
So we’re a little in the dark why OSU is ahead of OU.
In conference play, the Sooners have played the tougher schedule. OU has played four games total against the four Big 12 teams with losing conference records. OSU has played five.
But strength-of-schedule rankings show the Cowgirls with a tougher schedule – ranked 21st in the nation, to OU’s 46th.
Another possible explanation is adjusted net efficiency, one of the NET’s components. According to the NCAA, adjusted net efficiency is “a measure of a team’s overall performance during the regular season, determined by the difference between offensive efficiency (points per possession) and defensive efficiency (opponent points per possession). It also accounts for strength of opponents (as measured by their adjusted net efficiency) and location (home/away/neutral) of the games (against Division I opponents only).”
In other words, margin of victory matters.
In ESPN’s bracketology, OU currently is a 7-seed and OSU a 10-seed, going into Saturday games. The Sooners host West Virginia at 2 p.m. The Cowgirls play at Texas Christian at 1 p.m.
The selection committees of each gender do not follow the NET rankings off a cliff. But they are a fundamental tool in bracketing the NCAA Tournaments, and for now, the NET serves as an ace in the hole for the upstart Cowgirls.
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Mailbag: Porter Moser
OU basketball coach Porter Moser seemed like a great hire 22 months ago, and maybe he still will be. But as Moser hits the homestretch of his second Sooner season, his record is 31-26 overall and 9-18 in the Big 12.
Robert: “Porter Moser. Is this league over his head; 22-50 at Illinois State, .500 in league play at Loyola(-Chicago) in the Missouri Valley? This team is in trouble, just not athletic enough. Tanner Groves is a disaster. They are no doubt the bottom of the Big 12. Nice guy, but the wrong guy in this league.”
Tramel: Way too early to say that. Moser did a solid job last season. The Sooners were the second team left out of the NCAA Tournament; they upset third-ranked Baylor 72-67 in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals, then lost to 14th-ranked Texas Tech 56-55 in the semifinals.
This season has been a disappointment. The Sooners clearly don’t have the horses. Tanner Groves is not a disaster. He’s just not athletic enough to keep up with some Big 12 opponents. Groves had a fine game as OU routed then-second-ranked Alabama 93-69 six days ago.
It’s a funny game. But Moser must recruit better athletes. Of that there is no doubt.
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The List: Super Bowl coaches vs. former franchise
Andy Reid coaches the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 57 on February 12. It’s the fifth time a Super Bowl head coach has been pitted against a team he formerly head coached:
1. Weeb Ewbank: Ewbank coached the New York Jetropolitans to a 16-7 upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl 3. Ten years earlier, Ewbank had coached the Colts to NFL championships in 1958 and 1959.
2. Dan Reeves: Reeves coached the Atlanta Falcons to Super Bowl 33, where they lost to the Broncos 34-19. Reeves had coached Denver to three Super Bowls in 12 seasons, but the Broncos lost all three. Super Bowl 21 to the Giants (39-20), Super Bowl 22 to the Redskins (42-10) and Super Bowl 24 to the 49ers (55-10).
3. Jon Gruden: Gruden coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 48-21 rout of the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl 37. Gruden had coached the Raiders the previous four seasons.
4. Pete Carroll: Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots 28-24 in Super Bowl 49. Carroll coached the Patriots from 1997-99 but was fired to make way for Bill Belichick.
5. Andy Reid: Reid coached the Eagles to Super Bowl 39, where they lost to New England 24-21. Now Reid faces Philadelphia in Super Bowl 57. Reid is 1-1 in Super Bowls with the Chiefs.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State basketball star Kalib Boone reminiscent of Leroy Combs
