Oklahoma Sooners men's basketball

The program competes in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).In addition to their tournament successes the program has produced several 33 All-Americans including Wayman Tisdale, Stacey King, Harvey Grant, Mookie Blaylock, Ryan Minor, Hollis Price, and Blake Griffin, 9 first round draft picks, including one No.Star players Wayman Tisdale, Mookie Blaylock, and Stacey King guided the Sooners to several deep runs in the NCAA tournament.Tubbs, 59 years old at the time, left to take over the struggling Texas Christian University basketball program, signing a 5-year contract worth between $200,000 and $400,000 per season.Standouts Eduardo Nájera and Hollis Price helped the Sooners maintain a streak of 25 straight post season appearances, the longest in the nation.At the end of their investigation, the NCAA issued a report citing more than 550 illegal calls made by Sampson and his staff to 17 different recruits.On April 11, 2006, Jeff Capel was named the 12th head basketball coach at Oklahoma, succeeding Kelvin Sampson.Though the Sooner Nation as a whole greeted Capel's hiring with optimism,[citation needed] one notable downside of the coaching change emerged—Sampson's departure caused three of the players who had signed with OU (once considered a top-five recruiting class) to rethink each's decision to attend OU.In his second year, after signing McDonald's All-American Forward Blake Griffin, the Sooners finished 21–10 during the regular season (9-7 in Big 12 play) earning them a No.Player of the Year Candidate Blake Griffin announced he would be returning for his sophomore season, forgoing a possible lottery-pick status in the NBA draft.The team experienced one of the best starts in school history at 25–1, until Griffin was sidelined with a concussion during the first half of the OU–Texas game on February 21, 2009.Griffin returned to the lineup on February 28, 2009, and the Sooners returned to their winning ways defeating Texas Tech by 15 in Lubbock on 2/28/09, before losing on the road to Missouri, who was undefeated at home, and finishing the regular season by sweeping in-state rival Oklahoma State, who had won 7 of their previous 8 games.After a first-round bye in the Big 12 Tournament, the 2nd-seeded Sooners lost to the 7th-seeded Cowboys by 1 point during the final seconds of the game.In November 2011, the NCAA punished Oklahoma with three years probation, a $15,000 fine, reductions in recruiting, the loss of a scholarship, and vacation of all wins for the 2009–10 season.Lon Kruger was hired by OU to replace Jeff Capel as head coach prior to the 2011–12 season.The 2012–13 season yielded a surprising 20–12 (11–7 Big 12, 4th) finish and resulted in the program's first NCAA tournament bid since Blake Griffin led the school to the Elite 8 in 2009.