Oklahoma basketball: Notable numbers from Sooners’ NCAA Tournament history
By Chip Rouse
The No. 30 has a special place in Oklahoma basketball history in connection with this year and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
It was 30 years ago this season that Billy Tubbs’ 1987-88 Sooners faced Kansas as a heavy favorite in the national championship game. No. 1-seeded Oklahoma rolled through its first five games, including an 86-78 victory over another No. 1 seed, Arizona, in the national semifinals.
Kansas was a No. 6 seed that year and had lost to the Sooners twice in the regular season, both times by eight points. The Jayhawks beat a Lon Kruger-coached Kansas State team in the Midwest Regional finals to advance to the Final Four that year, and then upset No. 2 Duke in the national semifinals to earn the spot opposite Oklahoma in the national championship game.
“Danny (Manning) and the Miracles,” as the media referred to the upstart Jayhawks in the 1988 national title game, played the high-scoring, up-tempo Sooners to a standstill in the first 20 minutes. The game was deadlocked at 50 apiece at halftime. Manning and the Jayhawks took control in the second half and actually wore-down the top-seeded OU team that featured its own group of stars in Stacey King, Mookie Blaylock and Harvey Grant.
Oklahoma won 35 games that season, but the Sooners couldn’t get it done in the game that counted the most. Kansas defeated OU 83-79, denying the Sooners their first national championship in basketball. Manning scored 31 points in the Jayhawk win and collected 18 rebounds. It will go down as one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history, and one that Sooner fans, like yours truly, won’t soon forget.
The other thing that is significant about OU basketball and the No. 30 is this is the Sooners’ 30th appearance in the NCAA Men’s Tournament.
Oklahoma’s last NCAA Tournament game was another game Sooner fans will long remember, for all the wrong reasons. Buddy Hield led the Sooners to their fifth Final Four appearance in 2016, but their stay in Houston was a very short one. Eventual national champion Villanova, one of the favorites to win it all this year, embarrassed the Crimson and Cream, handing Oklahoma a 95-51 shellacking, the highest margin of victory in NCAA Tournament history.
Here are a few other notable numbers from Oklahoma’s NCAA Tournament history:
12 – OU record for NCAA Tournament games played by a Sooner player (Hollis Price, 2000-03, and Stacey King 1987-89).
13 – OU record for made three-point field goals in an NCAA Tournament game (by 13th-seeded Oklahoma against UNC Charlotte in 1999).
17 – Most rebounds in an NCAA Tournament game by an OU player (Blake Griffin in 2009 and Harvey Grant in 1987).
37 – Most points scored by an OU player in an NCAA Tournament game (by Buddy Hield twice in 2016 and Stacey King in 1988).
40-31 – Oklahoma’s record in 29 NCAA Tournament appearances.
41 – Most points scored by an opposing player against Oklahoma in an NCAA Tournament game (Roosevelt Chapman of Dayton in 1984).
98 – Most points scored by an OU opponent in an NCAA Tournament game (Louisville in 1988, in a game the Sooners won 108-98).
124 – Most points scored by an Oklahoma team in an NCAA Tournament game (against Louisiana Tech in 1989.