Oklahoma Basketball: All-Time Sooners Men’s Basketball Team

Oct 20, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin (32) posts up on Golden State Warriors forward

(left) during the first quarter at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports

Blake Griffin (2007-09), First Team Forward

The Oklahoma Sooners did not have to go far to recruit the player that later became the National Player of the Year in 2009, the third Sooner in history to receive that high honor. Blake Griffin played his high school basketball at Oklahoma Christian School in Oklahoma City, where his coach was his father, Tommy Griffin.

It also didn’t hurt that Blake’s older brother, Taylor, was already playing basketball at OU, recruited by Kelvin Sampson, who obviously also had designs on joining the Griffin brothers at OU and keeping them together as they had been throughout their basketball lives. Only Sampson was no longer at Oklahoma when Blake was ready to become a Sooner. Sampson had accepted a job at Indiana and was replace by Jeff Capel.

A McDonald’s All-American and Oklahoma High School Player of the Year, Griffin had competing offers from Duke, Kansas and North Carolina, but in the final analysis, Taylor was able to persuade his younger brother to come play with him at OU.

One of the highest-rated and most-talented recruits in Sooner basketball history. Griffin averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds in his second and final season at Oklahoma and was named a First Team All-American. The Sooners were 30-6 that season and made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Basketball Tournament before falling to North Carolina in one of the regional finals. Griffin’s 30 double-doubles in the 2008-09 season were one shy of the NCAA record set by David Robinson of Navy in 1986-87.

Griffin was the first player from the University of Oklahoma to be taken No. 1 overall in the NBA draft. He is now in his sixth season with the Los Angeles Clippers, the team that selected him No. 1 in the 2009 draft. He missed the entire 2009-10 campaign with the Clippers due to a season-ending knee injury and did not make his NBA debut until 2010. He is currently averaging 24 points and 9 rebounds per game one month into the 2015-16 NBA season.

Next: Wayman Tisdale (1982-85), First Team Forward