Oklahoma Sooners

From Hoopedia

The University of Oklahoma, abbreviated OU, is a coeducational public research university located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma founded in 1890. Its main campus is in Norman, Oklahoma. The school's sports teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to early Oklahoma land rush pioneers who sneaked into the offered territory and staked claims before the land run officially started. They participate in the NCAA's Division I and in the South Division of the Big 12 Conference.

Men's Basketball

The men's basketball team is highly successful and rose to national prominence since the early 1980s with head coach Billy Tubbs and three time All-American power forward Wayman Tisdale. It currently plays in the Lloyd Noble Center, which came to be known as the house Alvan Adams built and Tisdale filled. While the team has never won a national championship, it ranks second in most tournament wins without a championship behind Illinois. The team played in the 1988 national championship game but lost to Kansas, despite having beaten the Jayhawks twice earlier in the season. The program has won a combined twenty regular-season and tournament conference championships.

The Sooners headed into the 2005-06 season ranked #6 in the AP preseason poll, led by Taj Gray, Kevin Bookout, Terrell Everett, and David Goldbold, but had a disappointing early season. After the emergence of Micheal Neal as a potential star, the Sooners salvaged a #3 seed in the Big 12 Conference Tournament but lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

On March 29, 2006, Kelvin Sampson left the University of Oklahoma to become the head basketball coach at Indiana University. 13 days later, on April 11, 2006, Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione named Jeff Capel III the new head coach. Capel encountered trouble in his first few months as several players who had been recruited by Sampson backed out of their commitments. The Sooners look to continue a streak of 12 consecutive postseason tournament appearances in 2006-2007.

Women's Basketball

OU Women's Basketball began during the 1974-1975 academic year. Funding was lax, as the school provided $42,000 to fund six new women's sports. The program was an afterthought with many years of below average performance. In March of 1990, Oklahoma officials released a statement saying that the women's basketball program was to be dropped. Many people voiced their complaints and eight days later, OU reinstated the program. At the time, the average attendance per game was only 65 people. It wasn't until 1996 when OU hired local high school basketball coach, Sherri Coale, that the team became something Sooners would be proud of. As with the Men's team, they call Lloyd Noble Center home.

The program gained national prominence during the 2002 post-season when they advanced to the National Title game and lost to the University of Connecticut Huskies. In the 2005-2006 season, the Sooners were led by their coach Sherri Coale and the nationally-known sophomore twins Courtney and Ashley Paris, daughters of former San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Bubba Paris, to the third round of the national tournament. The team also won the Big 12 regular season championship (with a 16-0 conference record) and the Big 12 Tournament. They are the first Big 12 basketball team, men's or women's, to remain undefeated throughout conference play.