It was bad enough to lose to national champion Villanova in this season’s Final Four, but knowing it was the last Oklahoma basketball game for Buddy Hield magnified the letdown.
Hield, the 2016 Naismith College Player of the Year, is a major loss for a team that went 29-8 this past season and finished No. 4 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll, but he is not the only one who will need to be replaced.
The Sooners also lose starters Ryan Spangler and Isaiah Cousins. Along with Hield, whose 25 points-per-game average this past season was the second best in the country, Spangler and Cousins made up nearly 40 percent of the team’s offensive production and close to 50 percent of its rebounding.
Without question, the 2016-17 version of coach Lon Kruger’s Sooner basketball team will have giant shoes to fill, but it won’t be as if the cupboard is bare.
Jordan Woodard, who has started every game for Oklahoma in his first three seasons, will take over as the team leader. Woodard averaged 13 points and was the Sooners’ second leading scorer this season.
OU also has Khadeem Lattin, a big-time rim protector, back next season. Lattin started every game his sophomore season in 2015-16, and his development on the offensive end became quite evident over the last half of the season.
Another player who showed noticeable growth and made some important contributions in Oklahoma’s NCAA Tournament run this season was freshman Christian James. James saw limited playing time this season, but averaged 2.9 points a game when he was on the court. Over his final six games of the season, however, he had a couple of double-digit scoring efforts and averaged nearly six points.
Redshirt freshman Dante Buford will be called on to play a bigger role next season, as will 6-10 teammate Jamuni McNeace, another redshirt freshman this season.
The lifeblood of any successful program is a pipeline of talented recruits and a coaching staff with the expertise and track record of developing and growing the incoming talent. Kruger and his assistants have proven what they can do on that front. You don’t have to look any further than the core of this year’s team – Hield, Cousins and Spangler – all of whom started together back in Kruger’s first season in Norman – to see how far the Sooners have come under Kruger and what can be expected of them going forward.
Oklahoma has improved its record in each of Kruger’s five seasons as head coach.
This consistency is paying off in recruiting, and is expected to continue so next season. Kruger’s 2016 class includes two prospects – 6-5 shooting guard Kameron McGusty and 6-8 forward Kristian Doolittle – who are ranked in ESPN’s Top 100.
McGusty played his high school ball at Sunrise Academy in Wichita, Kan. If that school sounds familiar, it should, because that is the same school from which Buddy Hield was recruited. The Sooners have been following Doolittle for several seasons while he performed at nearby Edmond Memorial High School.
Another promising prospect who will join the Sooners next season is junior college recruit Darrion Strong, a combo guard who is touted as a high-percentage three-point shooter.
McGusty and Doolittle are expected to be slotted as wing players, which is where Hield and Cousins primarily operated in the Sooner offense. Strong most likely will serve as backup for Woodard.
As far as a replacement for Spangler, Oklahoma is looking to 6-9 Matt Freeman, from Auckland, New Zealand, who averaged 31 points his final season in high school. Like Spangler, Freeman is touted as a very versatile player with good shooting range that extends out to the perimeter.
All told, the outlook still looks bright for Oklahoma basketball in the future – despite the departure of the best player in college basketball this past season.
At least one source believes that Oklahoma basketball won’t fall out of sight next season, as far as the top teams in the country go. The ESPN “Way Too Early Top 25” has the Sooners at No. 18 looking out to the 2016-17 season.