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Lon Kruger: ‘We Were Fortunate to Get the Last Shot’

By Chip Rouse

Jan 30, 2016; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lon Kruger against the LSU Tigers during the first half of a game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 30, 2016; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lon Kruger against the LSU Tigers during the first half of a game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports /
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Head coach Lon Kruger reached the century-win level on Saturday in his fifth season at Oklahoma, but this is by far his best Sooner team.

His team’s remarkable comeback victory over a fired-up, upset-minded squad from LSU – in what has become almost an expectation this season from this veteran OU team – gave Kruger his 100th win at Oklahoma.

This season is far from the Sooner head coach’s first rodeo, however. He has been a head coach at six different schools and taken five of them to the NCAA Tournament, the only coach in NCAA history to do so. He also is one of only four active college coaches to win 100 or more games at three different schools.

Saturday’s 77-75 win by the top-ranked Sooners over unranked LSU and its freshman sensation Ben Simmons in a very hostile environment was as sweet as any of Oklahoma’s four wins over ranked teams this season.

“We were down and a lot of things weren’t going very smoothly,” Kruger said in his postgame press briefing. “The guys kept talking about turning (it) up defensively. I thought they did that.”

Buddy Hield, with three big-time three-point baskets late in the game,  led the big charge that brought the Sooners back from 10-point down and produced their first lead in the game, but it was Isaiah Cousins who put the nation’s No. 1 team ahead to stay.

We were down, and a lot of things weren’t going very smoothly.” —Lon Kruger, OU head coach

Oklahoma led for just two minutes and 57 seconds in the entire game, but it came at the most important point in the contest: at the end.

Both Hield and Cousins “had a high level of confidence in the last few minutes,” Kruger said about the game’s two prime stars in the Sooners’ win. “I liked the idea of Isaiah getting to the right spot and getting off a good shot.” Hield provided the decoy on the winning play that allowed Cousins to get into the lane and in position to get a good look for the game-winner.

“We hung in there,” the OU head coach said. “I thought the guys on both teams made big plays down the stretch, and big shots down the stretch. We were just fortunate to get the last shot.”

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