OU Men’s Basketball No. 8 in ESPN’s ‘Not Too Early’ Top 25
By Chip Rouse
When Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year Buddy Hield announced last spring the he was returning for his final season of OU men’s basketball, the expectations for the Sooners in 2015-16 immediately shot to the rafters much like the pregame video pyrotechnics at Lloyd Noble Center.
The Sooners have finished second in the final Big 12 standings the past two seasons, and the team that head coach Lon Kruger will put on the court next season is expected to be the most promising in his five seasons at Oklahoma.
Kruger’s Sooner teams have posted 20-win seasons in each of the three previous years, and last season’s squad advanced to the Sweet 16 round before falling to Michigan State.
ESPN recently issued a new preseason projection of the top teams in the upcoming 2015-16 college basketball season. The cable sports network is calling it’s latest top-25 poll the “No Longer Way-Too-Early Top 25.” And the title is appropriate because the college basketball season is closer than you may think – under 100 days before the season-opening tip 0ff.
The Sooners are ranked No. 8 in ESPN’s latest 2015-16 preseason college basketball poll, one of three Big 12 schools that made the top 10. Eleven-time defending Big 12 champion Kansas is at No. 5, and Iowa State is just ahead of OU at No. 7.
The Maryland Terrapins claim the top spot in the “No Longer Way Too Early Top 25,” with North Carolina No. 2. Both teams are out of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The No. 3 team in the poll is Kentucky, with Virginia No. 4 and then the Jayhawks. The remainder of the top 10 includes No, 6 Duke, No. 9 Wichita State and Villanova in the 10th spot.
“It wasn’t uncommon to hear people ask how the Sooners could possibly deserve a No. 3 seed (in last season’s NCAA Basketball Tournament),” says ESPN college basketball writer Eamonn Brennan about Oklahoma men’s basketball in the coming season.
“The long answer had to do with top-50 wins and strength of schedule and sundry other RPI-related arcana. The short answer was that Oklahoma was really good,” he writes.
“How many rosters have (A) one of the best volume scorers in the country (Buddy Hield), (B) a reliable low-post threat (Ryan Spangler), (C) a lights-out shooter on the wing (Isaiah Cousins), and (D) an elite defense (which allowed the fewest points per trip in the butcher-shop Big 12? Not many.”