From time to time (and at least weekly), I’ll try to write up a game of particular fantasy significance. At least enough to make me figure out when it is on and fire up the DVR for some heavy duty watching. Last night, I had the good fortune to pick the battle between Oklahoma and Davidson as my first Game of the Week of the season. As a side note, I was disappointed that ESPN, Cox, and Fox Sports didn’t have any games on this past weekend. Since I ponied up so much dough for preview magazines, there wasn’t much left in the coffer for ESPNU – some day…

The obvious reasons to watch this game were Blake Griffin and Stephen Curry (whose first name I have yet to type correctly on the first go). I also wanted to see Willie Warren to see if his play matched the hype. My interest was piqued even more yesterday when I had a conversation on the PFS forum about benching Griffin for the game. One guy, an admitted Davidson fan, posted these numbers from 2007-08 to show how excellent the low post Wildcat defense was last year:

Dominant big men last year, vs. Davidson:
Tyler Hansbrough, 14 points (well below his avg.)
Kevin Love, 12 points (well below his avg.)
Brian Butch, 11 points (well below his avg.)
JJ Hickson, 10 points (well below his avg.)
Darrell Arthur, 7 points (well below his avg.)
Roy Hibbert, 6 points (well below his avg.)

There were three problems with his argument. First off, of course, those stats come from last year. Second, Davidson lost Boris Meno and Thomas Sander from its frontcourt (a pet peeve of mine for a future blog post is about lowering team’s ratings on how much they lost, but that’s an argument for another day), so while the defensive principles would be the same, the players would not. Finally, I think Blake Griffin as a sophomore may be better than any of the “dominant” big men that Davidson faced last year.

I didn’t start watching until 10 PM (central), so I was able to cruise right through the game. I was impressed by the Davidson defensive efforts on Griffin in the early going, but it was hard not to be even more impressed by how well Griffin rebounds (and how well the rest of the Sooners block out to allow baby Blake to snatch rebound after rebound). While Griffin looks like a bit of lunkhead with his Shane Battier low brow, he has an impressive combination of strength, agility, and skill. He simply wore down Davidson and pretty much single handedly eliminated two Wildcat forwards on fouls. As long as his knee issues don’t resurface and his brother doesn’t stay at Oklahoma for a fifth year somehow, he’d be crazy to stay in school. Griffin would have been a top three pick in the NBA last year and it’s hard to imagine him losing much of his draft stock in the 2009 draft.

Curry has been described with any number of superlatives coming into the season, and he deserves every one of them. While it’s true that it took him 29 shots to score his 44 points, he made scoring look relatively easy. He hit six threes and was true on all 14 of his free throw attempts. This will be an interesting season for Curry as he tries to show some point guard skills. He made a few nice passes against Oklahoma, but I think people expecting him to elevate his teammates play via passes (like Jason Richards, I guess) are going to be disappointed. He is what he is: a scorer. Curry not only makes long range shots like his dad, but he can also slither to the basket. The junior guard’s nine steals in the opener may have raised the bar to a level he can’t maintain, but he is in for one of the best fantasy seasons from a guard in recent memory.

Warren reminded me of Sherron Collins, but the first year Sooner has a bigger role than Collins did in his first two years at Kansas. Warren has kind of a flippy perimeter shot, but he made two early threes and ended up with three on his way to his most productive game of the season. He also attacked the basket fiercely at times. Hopefully, he won’t fall in love with his three-point shot and be able to set himself or Griffin up for some easy baskets. I think there’s a chance, like Collins, that Warren may play out of control at times and be a detriment to his team. However, there’s also a chance that he will rein things in a bit and combine with Griffin (along with the lesser Sooners) to be a destructive force that will rule the Big 12 (I think Oklahoma is the favorite).

As for the game itself, it has been recapped elsewhere. The first half was reasonably close, but the Sooners opened up a 20-point lead in the second half, only to have Davidson battle back. Oklahoma would seem to relax after getting a big lead, and Davidson would chip away. As the Wildcat frontcourt figures out coach Bob McKillop’s system and face opponents without a 6-9 rebound munching beast, they will be tough to beat. The addition of 6-10 former-Harvard recruit Frank Ben-Eze in December will also help.

It was a fun viewing experience and I was wide awake at 11PM when it was over (anything less would have left me sleeping in front of the TV). If there’s a game that’s on national TV this weekend that you’d like me to shine my spotlight on, let me know and I’ll write it up. By the way, I’ll try not to write up the same team twice.