Franchise Opportunities in Oklahoma City, OK

OKLAHOMA CITY — After a 10-game losing streak in December gave way to a five-game winning streak around Christmas, the Washington Wizards finally evened out in the first week of 2023.

Their return to earth looked like this: a win against the shorthanded Milwaukee Bucks on New Year’s Day, a loss to the nearly full-strength Bucks two days later and a thorough fleecing Friday night in a 127-110 loss by a young, bold and athletic Oklahoma City that those paying attention might’ve been able to smell from a mile away.

Coach Wes Unseld Jr. knew the dangers. He spoke before the game about the need to keep Thunder rising star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out of the paint, yet the guard moved like a freight train all night, picking up speed around midcourt and chugging along until he was full of steam and heading right toward his defender. Sometimes, the Wizards (17-23) didn’t have to get out of the way — Gilgeous-Alexander had a wide lane to drive on through.

Unseld spoke about Oklahoma City’s prowess in transition, too, and spectators had to whip their heads from side to side like it was a tennis match with how quickly the Thunder played. Oklahoma City’s frenetic defense was the foundation of its win, goading Washington into 20 turnovers.

The visitors, who were again without guard Bradley Beal, were behind nearly from the start. Beal is expected to miss at least two more games with what the team is calling a low-grade hamstring strain.

The Wizards’ biggest issue was solving the Thunder’s lockdown defense, which regularly picked up Washington players nearly at full court and buzzed at the top of the key, often forcing turnovers. Washington couldn’t keep up — it turned the ball over six times in the first quarter and fell into a 20-point deficit that grew to 26 before halftime.

The Wizards were so flustered on offense that it impacted their defense. Gilgeous-Alexander was potent in the paint early, but he didn’t need to carry his team. Thunder Coach Mike Daigneault played a fairly deep rotation with nine players, and everyone was active.

Unseld, on the other hand, was so desperate for a spark he called on backup guard Jordan Goodwin and backup wing Will Barton, both of whom had fallen out of the rotation and hadn’t played minutes before garbage time since Dec. 22.

They didn’t help. Oklahoma City (17-22) went into the locker room up 26 and shooting 54 percent from the floor with 10 three-pointers. The Wizards had racked up 11 turnovers.

The Thunder ended shooting 51 percent from the floor and had 17 threes. Washington made a late push, getting only as close as 14 in the fourth quarter.

Kyle Kuzma led with 23 points, five rebounds and seven assists. Daniel Gafford had 15 points and nine rebounds. Kristaps Porzingis had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Will Barton added 14 points off the bench.

Kyle Kuzma received the seventh-most votes among Eastern Conference frontcourt players when the NBA released its first returns for the All-Star Game on Thursday. Kuzma, who is averaging career-highs in points (21.3), field goal percentage (46.0) and minutes (35.2), was the only Wizards player among the top 10 vote-getters for both guards and bigs.

One side effect of Unseld tightening his rotation last month was the lessening of Goodwin’s role. The backup guard had not played meaningful minutes since Dec. 22 before Friday, when Unseld brought him off the bench early. The Wizards needed a feisty, disruptive player like Goodwin to match the Thunder’s energy, and Goodwin did cause some havoc on defense. He had nine points in 22 minutes on 4-for-5 shooting from the floor.

(NerdWallet) – If you feel you have more to complain about these days, you may be right.

The products we use are increasingly complex, which often means they have more ways to malfunction. Companies are still struggling to hire and retain workers, so the customer service representatives who are supposed to help you may not know how. And that’s if you can even get through to a human being after navigating websites, automated chatbots and phone systems that seem designed to thwart you at every turn.

“You’re searching for where to call. Once you get through, you’re going to yell ‘agent!’ in the phone 12 times, and then they send you to the wrong place,” says Scott M. Broetzmann, chief executive of research firm Customer Care Measurement & Consulting in Alexandria, Virginia.

On average, customers made 2.9 contacts with a company while attempting to resolve problems, according to the firm’s 2020 National Customer Rage Study, which polled 1,026 consumers about problems with products or services in the past 12 months. A whopping 58% of respondents who complained got nothing — zero, zilch — as a result of their efforts. So perhaps it’s not surprising that 65% of those who had a problem experienced consumer rage.

If you want to improve your odds of getting results, and lower your blood pressure, consider the following tips for complaining effectively.

Prepare to persevere

Broetzmann urges people to “pick their battles,” given how much effort is typically required to solve problems and how often they occur. The 2020 study found 66% of American households had at least one problem with products and services they purchased during the past 12 months, compared with 56% in the 2017 version of the survey.

“You will put yourself into a place of exhaustion and depression if you complain about every single thing that went wrong,” Broetzmann says.

Kevin Doyle, an editor at Consumer Reports, suggests people gather all the documentation they might need before reaching out to a company. That could include account, confirmation and order numbers, warranties and notes from previous interactions with company representatives, for example. Missing information could force you to start over on whatever phone or digital system you’re using to complain.

Choose your venue

People who make complaints are about as likely to use digital tools such as email, live chats, company websites and social media as they are to pick up the phone, the 2020 study found.

Social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter have the advantage of being public, which puts some pressure on the company to resolve the problem. Posting your complaint on social media also bypasses the chatbots, phone trees, hold times and malfunctioning voice recognition software that can make customer service such a trial.

But of the 14% of respondents who used social media to complain about their worst problem, nearly half didn’t receive a response from the company, according to the study. So if you’re tempted to turn to social media first, be ready to have a backup plan that involves connecting with a human by phone, email or chat.

Be concise

Part of your preparation should be boiling down your complaint to the essentials, including what happened and — more importantly — how you want the company to fix it. Too many consumers aren’t specific about what they want from the company, Broetzmann says.

Just make sure the remedy you suggest is commensurate with the problem, Doyle says. If the seatback TV didn’t function on your flight, don’t ask for a free ticket; ask for a credit for a drink or a meal on your next trip, he suggests.

“Are you going to get it? Who knows? But chances are, you’re not going to get it unless you ask,” Doyle says.

Resist the urge to explain every twist and turn of your journey, or to overstate your distress for dramatic effect. Extraneous details and exaggerations could make you easier to dismiss.

“Stick to the facts,” Doyle says. “Embellishing it is going to diminish your credibility.”

Recruit the rep

Being civil or even nice can win you points with weary reps too often exposed to abusive or aggressive customers. Doyle suggests building on that connection by asking the rep to put themselves in your shoes.

“If you invite them to imagine how they would feel, it can be effective,” Doyle says.

If the rep can’t seem to help you, try asking for a supervisor or simply calling back to get a different agent. (I recently had to call a bank three times before I found a rep who was willing to connect me to the department that could finally solve my problem.)

Anger is an understandable response when you get the runaround. But try to remember that the customer service rep is a human being too and didn’t cause the original problem, Doyle notes.

“You want to keep your cool,” Doyle says. “Because that’s the old adage: You really do catch more flies with honey.”

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) – No. 6 Texas took a key step toward moving past the Chris Beard era on Saturday.

            Beard, who faces a felony domestic family violence charge stemming from a Dec. 12 incident involving his fiancée, was fired Thursday. Texas said in a letter to his attorney that Beard was “unfit” for the position.

With interim coach Rodney Terry at the helm, the Longhorns focused on basketball. Marcus Carr scored 12 points in Texas’ 56-46 win over Oklahoma State, and Texas (13-2, 2-1 Big 12) improved to 6-1 under Terry.

“I’m proud of our guys,” Terry said. “And I said to them the other day, probably more than any team in the country, this group has really stuck together and persevered through some adversity and some challenges. … They’ve really focused on what they can control and I think just kind of locked in and enjoyed playing with each other and being around each other every day.”

Texas bounced back from Tuesday’s 116-103 loss to Kansas State, despite shooting just 31.5% from the field against Oklahoma State. The Longhorns held the Cowboys to 30.4% shooting.

“We said that we needed to have a gritty team today,” Terry said. “You know, the team that was going to come in and play their hardest today and really try to max out defensively was going to have a chance to win this game today.”

Kalib Boone had 16 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks for Oklahoma State (9-6, 1-2), which narrowly lost to now-No. 3 Kansas on Dec. 31 and had a solid win over West Virginia before Saturday’s loss.

Oklahoma State’s Moussa Cisse, the 7-foot-1 forward who leads the Big 12 with 9.9 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game, missed the game with an ankle injury.

“We missed him throughout the overall game, both offense and defense,” guard John-Michael Wright said. “He’s a big presence.”

Texas led 32-24 at halftime despite shooting 32.1% before the break. Eight Longhorns scored in the first half, but none posted more than five points. Texas held Oklahoma State to 33.3% shooting and outscored the Cowboys 12-7 from the free-throw line in the first 20 minutes.

An alley-oop dunk by Boone cut Texas’ lead to 43-41, and Caleb Asberry followed with a 3-pointer that finally gave the Cowboys a 44-43 lead with 8:20 remaining.

Oklahoma State didn’t make another field goal. A 3-pojnter by Texas’ Brock Cunningham with about two minutes remaining put the Longhorns up 53-46, the highlight of their 12-1 run over the final six minutes to end the game.

BIG PICTURE

Texas: It was a good defensive effort for the Longhorns coming off a game in which they gave up the most points they had ever allowed in a Big 12 game.

“We won this game on Thursday, not today on Saturday,” Terry said. “We won it back in Austin. You know, we came off a tough loss at home and we didn’t play very good defense in that ballgame and kind of got away from our identity.”

Oklahoma State: Even without one of their top players, the Cowboys hung tough against a top-10 team that had been averaging 84.1 points per game.

BLOCK PARTY

Even without Cisse, Oklahoma State blocked 12 shots. Boone’s six swats matched a career high and forward Tyreek Smith matched his career best with three.

UP NEXT

Texas: Hosts TCU on Wednesday.

Oklahoma State: Visits Kansas State on Tuesday.

The Dallas Mavericks play against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Paycom Center

The Dallas Mavericks are spending $7,336,244 per win while the Oklahoma City Thunder are spending $8,435,630 per win

Game Time: 7:00 PM EST on Sunday January 8, 2023

Broadcast Info

Live Stream: fuboTV (Watch for free) NBA League Pass: The most live games plus NBA TV. Free trial

National TV: N/A Home TV: Bally Sports OK Away TV: Bally Sports SW-DAL Home Radio: WWLS/WKY Away Radio: 97.1 FM / S: 99.1 FM

When the game is underway, you can follow it here!

Dallas Mavericks @dallasmavs Check out our Top Plays of the Week! @att | #MFFL pic.twitter.com/qqegMBmJ2X – 12:56 PM

Sam Quinn @SamQuinnCBS A thought on the Lakers doing the whole “let’s wait and horde our picks for a star” thing. By my count, there are at least seven teams doing the same thing: the Knicks, Mavs, Thunder, Rockets, Grizzlies, Jazz and Pelicans. All of those teams have more to offer. So does Miami. – 12:47 PM

Dallas Mavericks PR @MavsPR Luka Dončić recorded his 50th career 20-point triple-double last night, good for 8th in @NBA history. Last night was also the 50th career 30-point, 10-rebound, 7-assist game for Dončić, which ranks 10th in @NBA history. pic.twitter.com/RWJ3rLrTng – 12:22 PM

Dallas Mavericks @dallasmavs Can’t stop thinking about that No-Luka dime @bedgear #NBAAllStar https://t.co/v2OE03X0Ew pic.twitter.com/HLX0RRGj5F – 11:33 AM

Chuck Cooperstein @coopmavs Mavs open a 5 game road trip tonight in OKC, and the road is where the West is going to be won this yr. Mavs are 7-11 on road, but have won last 4. No team in the West is >500 (DEN & MEM 10-10, SAC 9-9). @PeasRadio pre at 5:30. Tip w/Brad & me at 6:10 @971TheFreak – 11:20 AM

Oklahoma City Thunder @okcthunder we play basketball today pic.twitter.com/4zOuGlkWT3 – 10:45 AM

Joe Mussatto @joe_mussatto “Last year I fell into the trap of trying to prove to people that I could shoot the ball …” How Josh Giddey, with help from Chip Engelland, changed his mindset as much as his mechanics. oklahoman.com/story/sports/n… – 10:35 AM

Dallas Mavericks @dallasmavs Last night through the lens @TIAA | #MFFL pic.twitter.com/6qDPTXXyN7 – 10:30 AM

Oklahoma City Thunder @okcthunder Sunset Sunday! Dallas Mavericks @PaycomCenter https://t.co/urId1g2BQO 6PM CT @BallySportsOK @sportsanimal #ThunderUp pic.twitter.com/0gMxwBKMp4 – 10:19 AM

BasketNews @BasketNews_com Luka Doncic was tired of casual alley-oops, so he decided to spice some things up @NBATV pic.twitter.com/fwn6gpHSIC – 9:50 AM

BasketNews @BasketNews_com Luka Doncic says he watches more EuroLeague games than NBA pic.twitter.com/cG5rk9AqCE – 9:00 AM

Eurohoops @Eurohoopsnet You can take Luka out of the #EuroLeague, but you can’t take the EuroLeague out of Luka #NBA eurohoops.net/en/nba-news/14… – 4:44 AM

Jorge Sierra @hoopshype Luka Doncic says he watches more Euroleague than NBA pic.twitter.com/DtV7Bu32YF – 4:01 AM

BasketNews @BasketNews_com In his spare time, Luka Doncic hardly watches what his fellow candidates for the NBA MVP award are doing. The Slovenian star prefers to follow another league instead basketnews.com/news-183468-lu… – 2:05 AM

For Vance Klassen, the path from growing up in the small farming community of Lehigh, Kansas — "a town of 125 people on a good day" — to becoming a New York City-based singer, dancer and actor went right through Oklahoma City University.

"All these performance colleges are East and West Coast, these huge thousand-mile-away places — and I had never been out of state for anything longer than a vacation. So, I was looking for something a little bit more close to home, and, obviously, OCU popped up as one of the top 10," Klassen recalled.

"So, my junior year of high school — I didn't even wait 'til I was a senior to go on a tour — I dragged my dad and we visited campus. I checked out the programs ... and it became a dream of mine. I didn't really care where I ended up as long as it was OCU. That's where I needed to be."

The 2021 OCU graduate is ringing in 2023 by ringing doorbells in his old college town: Klassen is a member of the ensemble and an understudy for the lead role of Elder Price on the new national tour of the musical comedy "The Book of Mormon." The hilariously satirical 2011 Tony Award winner for best musical follows two young missionaries — dedicated go-getter Elder Price and truth-bending nerd Elder Cunningham — who are sent to Uganda to try to convert the residents of a small, remote village to the Mormon religion.

Boasting a gleefully crude and clever book, music and lyrics by “South Park” instigators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and “Avenue Q” co-writer Robert Lopez, the irreverent nine-time Tony-winning show is returning by popular demand to Oklahoma City, where it will play a limited run that's an add-on to the OKC Broadway 2022-2023 subscription season. A huge hit in its one-week OKC runs in 2018 and 2014, "The Book of Mormon" will say "Hello" again Jan. 13-15 at Civic Center Music Hall.

"It's only five shows in three days, but I'm gonna soak in every moment," Klassen said. "Kansas and Oklahoma City are my home. Unfortunately, we don't get to go anywhere in Kansas for this leg of the tour, so Oklahoma City is my true home theater. So, my heart is full. There's no way to describe it, being able to come back and be in the community that taught me so much and that gave me such a foundation."

During a recent tour stop in Palm Desert, California, Klassen talked about traveling with the famously profane show, finishing his degree during a pandemic and more.

Did you spend part of your time at OCU in the weird COVID days?

"Yes. We were the first graduation back in person — it was socially distanced — and then they paired it up with the class of 2020. For the year before, they had their's the day prior, and then we actually had our ceremony the next day. So, they did a two-for-one graduation.

"My junior year, I was sent home for spring break and was told we would not be returning for the rest of the semester. So, I completed a little bit of Zoom university for that semester and then came back to in-person classes senior year and was able to finish out that way. ... But I stayed very active at the music school, where I think I did nine shows and an opera."

How did your experience at OCU prepare you for your theater career?

"Like with the spring break program OCUNYC, they provide you master classes, workshops, dance classes, mock auditions, mock interviews, all at this very discounted rate for you to spend your spring break learning in the city. That was something completely new to me. I never would have expected that I would be going to those things, but that really ended up helping me a lot with ... bridging the gap between what I thought I knew and what I definitely did not know at all."

How is it touring with 'The Book of Mormon?'

"This is my first national tour. When I graduated, I did a luxury cruise line where I was a vocalist for five production shows there; I did that for about six months. But this was my first big thing on land, which is always nice.

"This show has just been a dream since it opened in 2011, and it's been running for so long because it is such a good show. It has everything you could ask for: It's comedy, it's heart and soul, it's spectacle, it's dance. It's life. It breathes in a sort of freshness, I think, that's always relevant.

"I think 2014 was the first time I'd seen it. I looked on stage and realized, 'There is a space for me there. There is a story for me to tell; there's something that I can actually contribute to and share with this.' And, thankfully, people have believed in me enough to give me that chance. So, when I say this is a dream come true, this is years in the making. I'm very blessed to be here doing what I love."

It seems like it would be a fun show to work on because it's so funny and such a huge hit.

"It's really interesting, because for this tour, we go to around 30 cities that have never had this show before. ... So, we've made the show very accessible to a lot of communities that would have simply just not had it, which is exciting. It's lively, that's for sure."

How has it been to understudy the Elder Price role?

"It's always interesting whenever an understudy or swing gets the call that you're going on. You go through every emotion possible, from absolutely scared and shaking in your boots a little bit to stepping up. Once the spotlight turns on, everything changes. It's a completely different world. It's two hours of play, excitement, joy.

"And then the bows come, and it's just a moment of celebration between the audience and the cast members that took extremely good care of me in the moments that I needed help. ... I made my debut (as Elder Price) on Oct. 25 when we were in Rapid City, South Dakota, and it was a rush, my first time leading a national tour. It was a big, celebratory moment, full of tears. My mom got to visit — she got to fly (in) from Kansas — so it a special day, for sure."

Features Writer Brandy "BAM" McDonnell has covered Oklahoma's arts, entertainment and cultural sectors for The Oklahoman for 20 years. Reach her at [email protected],www.facebook.com/brandybammcdonnell and twitter.com/BAMOK. Support her work by signing up for herSee & Do Oklahoma newsletter and subscribing to The Oklahoman.

'THE BOOK OF MORMON'