Lon Kruger announces his retirement after 10 seasons at OU
By Chip Rouse
The loss to Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament was Oklahoma’s final game of the 2020-21 season, and, as it turns out, it was also the final game for Lon Kruger as head coach of the Sooners.
The veteran college head coach announced his retirement on Thursday, ending 10 seasons as head coach of the Oklahoma men’s basketball team.
Kruger’s announcement follows by exactly a week the retirement of OU women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale. Coale had been in her position for 25 seasons.
Kruger came to Oklahoma in 2011 after seven winning seasons as head coach of the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. He had previous head-coaching stops at Texas-Pan American, Kansas State, his alma mater, Florida and Illinois. He is was successful at every stop, and was the first coach (there are now three) to have taken five different schools, including Oklahoma, to the NCAA Tournament.
Twice Big Eight Player of the Year when he played for Kansas State in the early 1970s, the 68-year-old Kruger has been a college head coach for 35 seasons, and that doesn’t include the three seasons he spent as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA.
Oklahoma was his longest stop of the five other schools where he has served as head coach. During the decade he was at Oklahoma, Kruger compiled a record of 195-128 (.604), the fourth most wins on the Oklahoma basketball career list. His 674 wins all-time are the 27th most in NCAA Division I.
Kruger took the Sooners to seven NCAA Tournaments in his 10 seasons, and it would have been eight had the 2020 tournament not been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. His NCAA Tournament appearances at OU included a Final Four in 2016 and two Sweet 16s.
Sooner players earned All-Big 12 First-Team selections six times while Kruger was head coach and two of his players earned national player of the year honors. Buddy Hield was 2016 National Player of the Year, and Trae Young was named National Freshman of the Year in 2018.
In 2019, Kruger was the recipient of the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.
“It’s anything but easy to sum up the career achievements of Lon Kruger the basketball coach and person in just a handful of sentences,” said OU athletic director Joe Castiglione in a statement issued by the university.
"“His track record of successfully rebuilding programs everywhere he coached is made even more impressive when considering how he did it,” Castiglione said..He won with integrity, humility, class and grace…He did it with genuine kindness that included his constant encouragement of everyone around him."
Lon Kruger is a winner. He was highly respected by everyone he came in contact with while at Oklahoma, and he made many contributions to the Oklahoma basketball program. He will be greatly missed.