Oklahoma Basketball: Experts Like Sooners’ Chances of Reaching Final Four
By Chip Rouse
In men’s Oklahoma basketball history, the Sooners have made only four appearances in the NCAA Final Four. Can this OU team make it five?
I’m sure the faithful in the Sooner Nation have high expectations of this year’s team. How can you not with the probable National Player of the Year on your side?
Will the No. 2-seeded Sooners be able to answer the call and garner the four wins that would enable them to be among the final four teams standing from the field of 64 and extend their 2015-16 season through three more weekends?
Only time will answer that curious question, but it should boost the confidence of Sooner fans to know that a number of college basketball experts feel that this could be the year for Oklahoma football and basketball teams both to make the Final Four in their respective sports.
The Sooner football team became the first Big 12 team to make the College Football Playoff this past season, something that is not all that uncommon for a school that is largely known for its elite standing in football (seven national championships, tied for the third most of any NCAA Division I team).
Since Lon Kruger arrived in 2011 as head coach at Oklahoma, the Sooners have been on a steady rise in men’s basketball, with this season’s team being the best he has had in five seasons at OU, and perhaps the best in his 30 seasons as a college head coach (although one could argue that his 1987-88 Kansas State squad that made it to the Elite Eight – the same memorable season Oklahoma played Kansas for the national championship – was equally as good).
At the beginning of the 2015-16 college basketball season, the experts projected a wide-open field with no truly dominant teams, but a number of really good teams. Looking back now at the nearly four-month regular season and all of the upsets that took place at the top of the rankings, it is pretty clear that the experts had a really good notion of what they were talking about back in the preseason.
Now we are less than 48 hours away from the onslaught of wall-to-wall games that traditionally make up the opening weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, when the field of 64 gets a significant trimming, reducing the field to just 16 teams.
ESPN asked 31 of its staff members who are engaged in some form or another with college basketball, including notable names such as Jay Bilas, Dick Vitale, Fran Fraschilla, Andy Katz and Joe Lunardi, to project the four teams they believe will come out of the four regions and constitute this season’s Final Four participants, and then go one step further and project who will be the last team standing.
If you are an Oklahoma fan, stand up and yell out “Boomer Sooner,” because 18 of the 31, or 58 percent of the voting panel, projected Buddy Hield and the Sooners to be the West Regional representative to advance to the Final Four, just like the 2001-02 OU team.
Before you get too excited, however, only one ballot had Oklahoma going all the way. That was Kara Lawson, an ESPN college basketball analyst, who had the Sooners hoisting the national championship trophy on April 4.
Among the ESPN writers and broadcasters who selected the Sooners as one of their Final Four teams were Jeff Goodman, Andy Katz, Joe Lunardi, Kara Lawson, Dick Vitale and Miles Simon.
Nevertheless, 18 of the 31 voters from ESPN felt that the No. 2 seed in the West Region would cut down the nets in that region. Seven of the voters selected No. 1 seed Oregon to come out of the West.
As for the team that garnered the most votes to win the national championship this season: It was a runaway between Michigan State and Kansas, with the Spartans receiving 18 of the 31 votes and the Jayhawks being the top choice on 10 of the ballots.