Oklahoma basketball: Hooray for the former Sooner from Harrah in his final hurrah
By Chip Rouse
In case you haven’t noticed, former Oklahoma basketball star Brady Manek is having a career year in his fifth and final season of college basketball.
Manek, an Oklahoma native from Harrah, a town about 40 miles northeast of Norman, was recruited by former OU head coach Lon Kruger as part of the team’s 2017 recruiting class and played four seasons for the Sooners. He was a three-star prospect coming out of high school.
The 6-foot, 9-inch forward averaged 12.0 points, nearly six rebounds and two made three-pointers per game over his career at Oklahoma.
When Kruger announced his retirement after the 2020-21 season, however, Manek, who has his degree from Oklahoma, was one of several OU teammates who elected to explore the transfer portal and finish out his collegiate eligibility with another program.
North Carolina was where the former Sooner landed, and he has been an important part of the Tar Heels sucess this season. Manek scored 20 points in his very first game in a North Carolina uniform and has been one of the Tar Heels’ scoring weapons, especially from three-point range, the entire season.
In North Carolina’s two wins in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament to advance to the Sweet 16, Manek scored 28 and 26 points, respectively. And that latter number might have been much higher than 26 had Manek not been ejected with more than 10 minutes to go against Baylor for throwing an elbow and drawing a flagrant-two foul.
Manek is averaging a career-high 15.1 points a game. In his past six games, however, the former Sooner is averaging 21.1 points, over made three-pointers and 5.3 rebounds per game.
In 35 games for North Carolina, the most he has played in five seasons of college basketball, Manek has scored in double figures in 27 games and eclipsed the 20-point level 10 times.
By any measure, the player rated by 247Sports as the No. 27 power forward in the 2017 recruiting class and the second-best player in the state of Oklahoma, is having a banner final college season and is a big reason that North Carolina is one of the 16 teams remaining in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.
Manek and his newly acquired Tar Heel teammates, the No. 8 seed in the East Region, are set to take on No. 4 UCLA in the East Region semifinals on Friday night in Philadelphia. UCLA is a 3.5-point favorite in the game, but that shouldn’t bother the Tar Heels, who were also underdogs last weekend before knocking off No. 1 seed Baylor.