Oklahoma’s roster for College Basketball Crown has obvious omissions

The Oklahoma men's basketball team on Sunday released its traveling roster that will compete in the College Basketball Crown this week, and fans immediately noticed there were some important names left off the list.

The Sooners' postseason roster featured 12 players, but did not include sophomore guard Dayton Forsythe, redshirt senior guard Jeff Nwankwo and freshman forward Andreas Holst making the trip to start College Basketball Crown tournament action against Colorado at 7 p.m. CT Wednesday in Las Vegas. The game will be televised on FS1. The Sooners are expected to be without those three players for the entire eight-team tournament that concludes on Sunday, April 5, and it was not revealed why they were not included on the roster.

Sooners College Basketball Crown roster

Kuol Atak
Xzayvier Brown
Tae Davis
Kirill Elatontsev
Jake Hansen
Jadon Jones
Finley Keeffe
Reid Lovelace
Nijel Pack
Derrion Reid
Kai Rogers
Mohamed Wague

Nwankwo not making the trip could mean the end of his college basketball career as a redshirt senior, but he did miss all off last season with an injury and redshirted in 2021-22 as a member of Tulane's football team before transferring to Cowley College to start his basketball career. That sidelined season could garner Nwankwo one more year. This season, Nwankwo appeared in 24 games with minimal playing time.

Forsythe was the most notable name omitted from the roster. He came off the bench and played in 28 games this season while dealing with an injury, Forsythe's stats aren't staggering with 5.3 points a game, but the Sooners were obviously better the healthier he got throughout the season.

Holst's absence won't even be noticed by fans after he didn't record a single stat during the season after signing as a consensus three-star recruit from the 2025 class.

Read more: Oklahoma quietly finds perfect consolation after March Madness heartbreak

In the end, there's always a chance Forsythe or Nwankwo could have contributed to wins in the College Basketball Crown, but none of three are deciding factors in how far the Sooners actually go in their second chance at the postseason after being the first team left out of the NCAA Tournament.

The winner between OU and Colorado will play the victor between Baylor and Minnesota on Saturday with the finals the next day. The other side of the bracket includes Stanford, West Virginia, Rutgers and Creighton.