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Oklahoma basketball: If not ‘Buddy Buckets,’ then who?

By Chip Rouse

HOUSTON, TEXAS - APRIL 02: Buddy Hield #24 of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts in the first half against the Villanova Wildcats during the NCAA Men's Final Four Semifinal at NRG Stadium on April 2, 2016 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TEXAS - APRIL 02: Buddy Hield #24 of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts in the first half against the Villanova Wildcats during the NCAA Men's Final Four Semifinal at NRG Stadium on April 2, 2016 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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The Oklahoma basketball roster for the 2018-19 season is a graybeard group by college basketball standards.

Half of the 16-man roster is made up of seniors and graduate transfers. There is only one true freshman on the team this season, and he wears the familiar Sooner jersey No. 24.

Jamal Bieniemy won’t be mistaken for Buddy Hield, the last Oklahoma player to wear that jersey number, not at first, anyway. But Lon Kruger and his coaching staff are expecting good things from the Houston area native, just as they did when the player who acquired the nickname “Buddy Buckets” arrived in Norman back in 2012.

Hield, who is now toiling in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings, averaged 7.8 points a game and 25 minutes of action in his freshman season at OU. Four years later, he was a consensus All-American and national player of the year. His senior season, Hield averaged a Big 12-best 25 points a game and led the Sooners to a 29-8 record and an appearance in the Final Four.

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While Hield was purely a shooting guard, the 6-foot, 4-inch Bieniemy is able to play both guard positions and, so far this season, is primarily being used as the backup to starting point guard Aaron Calixte.

Rated by Rivals as the No. 32 shooting guard in the 2018 national recruiting class, Bieniemy has averaged 16 minutes of playing time in the Sooners first two games this season, scoring a combined nine points and averaging four assists in both outings.

Bieniemy has athletic roots in his family, although in a different sport. His uncle, Eric Bieniemy, was an All-American running back at Colorado and played nine seasons in the NFL. The younger Bieniemy chose basketball and Oklahoma over such other interested programs as Oklahoma State and Iowa State out of the Big 12 and Texas A&M, Creighton and New Mexico.

One day in the not so distant future, the No. 24 will no doubt hang from the rafters at the Lloyd Noble Center. As the current bearer of the jersey number, Bieinemy wants to do its legacy well in the time he proudly wears it

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