Oklahoma Basketball: 2019-20 season preview for the Sooners

Oklahoma Basketball is one of the more intriguing teams for the upcoming season. What should be expected of the Sooners?

Your memories of the last decade of Oklahoma Basketball probably start and end with Blake Griffin, Buddy Hield and Trae Young.

That’s not without reason, of course. Together, Griffin, Hield and Young are responsible for three Big 12 Player of the Year nods, three All-American honors, one National Freshman of the Year award and two National Player of the Year awards, and each one of them is currently among the top 50 or so players in the NBA.

However, the larger college basketball world has tended to only focus on the Sooners when a superstar calls the Lloyd Noble Center home. That belies the fact that Oklahoma — while not in the same tier as a Duke, Gonzaga or Kentucky — has been one of the most stable programs in the nation for almost the entirety of the 2010s.

Since Lon Kruger arrived from UNLV in 2011, the Sooners have almost never been bad, and at their best have been among the nation’s elite. They’ve averaged 20 wins per season and pitched a .500 conference record in the perpetually deep Big 12. When Oklahoma made the Final Four in 2016 as Hield ascended to college basketball immortality, it marked the culmination of a slow, steady five-year climb to the top: from 15 wins, to 20, to 23, to 24 and finally to 29.

Even when the Sooners have been “bad,” that hasn’t really been the case. After the nucleus of the Final Four team graduated, Oklahoma went just 11-20 in a rebuilding year, but it lost nine games by six points or less, with a roster that included eight underclassmen and only one senior. The next year, the Sooners added Young to that core, and the Norman native put on one of the best shows in college basketball history.

Last season was the Sooners’ sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in Kruger’s eight-year tenure. Not many expected it to turn out that way, with Young leaving for the NBA — and by all rights, it shouldn’t have been. Oklahoma lacked an established point guard, a dominating post presence or elite talent on the wing. Its offense was second-to-last overall and in 3-point shooting in conference play. Somehow, Kruger rounded up these misfit toys and got them to the Big Dance, where they exploded against Ole Miss and weren’t overmatched by the eventual national champions.

Oklahoma lost five seniors that played big minutes, and nothing about its roster this year jumps off the page. The Sooners were picked to finish eighth in the Big 12 Preseason Poll, the same position they were last year. Considering the Big 12’s depth, that placement isn’t exactly unfair, but Kruger has earned the full benefit of the doubt. If/when you see Oklahoma’s name pop up on Selection Sunday, don’t be the least bit surprised.