Hello Yellow

Originally Published: May 17, 2010 9:27 PM CDTIt looked, well, yellow. As in bright, hopeful. The lower bowl of the BOK Center was full, and the fans filling those

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 1:22 pm

By: News On 6

Originally Published: May 17, 2010 9:27 PM CDT

It looked, well, yellow. As in bright, hopeful. The lower bowl of the BOK Center was full, and the fans filling those seats were into it. Some curious, others just ready to yell. As for pregame production value, things looked and sounded pretty impressive, even if the introductions took longer than Ben Crane examining a four-footer for par.

The problem was it was enough time for the Shock players to get even more hung up on how much they wanted to win their first game in Tulsa. Nervous energy is never a good thing in basketball, according to head coach Nolan Richardson.

At least two things were obvious based on opening night:

When the Shock win games it will be because of the full-court pressure they showed in the 2nd quarter, when they went on an 18-2 run to tie Minnesota at halftime.Right now the Shock don’t have a lot of options on the perimeter when it comes to scoring.

It would have been great to win that first game, but the novelty will last a while as the conditioning starts to better match the tempo.