2016-17 OU Hoops Post-Mortem

When you are the fan of a program that just set a school record for most losses in a season, you are totally within reason to feel like this:

The Oklahoma 2016-17 basketball season culminated in an 11-20 record – the program’s first ever 20-loss season – and the worst winning percentage since Billy Tubbs’s first year in 1981.

Tubbs would go on to win at least 20 games for the next 12 consecutive seasons.

In Kruger's sixth season at the helm, the Sooners finished ninth in the Big 12 and ranked in the bottom two of the conference in scoring defense, scoring margin, field goal percentage, three-point percentage, three-point defense, rebounding defense, assists, and assist-to-turnover ratio.

In 1995-96, Kelvin Sampson’s worst season in Norman, the Sooners went 17-13 overall and finished third in the Big 8.

In 2016-17, Lon Kruger became the first Sooner head coach to have a losing campaign in their sixth season or later since Doyle Parrack in 1962.

There’s no way to spin those numbers. They’re bad. Historically so.

However, it is important to always remember context and the circumstances that led to one of the worst basketball seasons in Oklahoma history.

An obvious void left from 2016's Final Four run is Buddy Hield, college basketball's unanimous player of the year and No. 6 overall selection in the NBA Draft. The Bahamas native finished his Sooner career as the second all-time leading scorer and top three-point shooter in school history.

Oklahoma winning 18 fewer games the year after losing a Naismith Award winner is unfortunate, but not entirely unheard of.

Creighton won 13 fewer games the year after losing Doug McDermott.

Wisconsin won 14 fewer games the year after losing Frank Kaminsky.

Kentucky won 17 fewer games the year after losing Anthony Davis.

It’s also important to remember that Oklahoma lost Isaiah Cousins and that no other OU men’s basketball player played in more career games than his 137. Cousins also finished his time in Norman seventh in minutes played, eighth in three-point field goals, 13th in assists, and 21st in scoring. He then became the sixth Sooner selected in the NBA Draft since 2000 when the Kings took him 59th overall.

That loss compounded the effects of the Hield departure, which was made that much more difficult by the graduation of Ryan Spangler, who finished his career ranked fourth in OU history for rebounds, trailing only Wayman Tisdale, Darryl Kennedy, and Alvan Adams. His 89 career blocks also tied Eduardo Najera for 11th in program history.

When that trio left Norman, Oklahoma lost 396 games of experience – including 328 starts.

The Sooners were suddenly without the faces of their program and stalwarts in the starting lineup for the past three seasons. Those key players, along with Jordan Woodard, had won 76 games in the previous three seasons, including back-to-back Sweet Sixteens and the school’s fifth Final Four.

Despite the losses of Hield, Cousins, and Spangler – along with assistant coaches Steve Henson and Lew Hill who took head coaching positions – there was optimism that Woodard, along with Khadeem Lattin, could lead a young athletic Sooner core to a competitive season in the Big 12.

Oklahoma actually began the season 5-1, with their only blemish coming in a 73-67 overtime loss to Northern Iowa in the Tire Pros Invitational semifinal where the Sooners once held an 18-point second half lead.

What appeared to be a frustrating loss at the time would ultimately became a foreboding sign of things to come; close games giving a dangerous glimmer of hope in what turned out to be an inauspicious pattern.

The Sooners would lose eight of their next nine games – four of which came in overtime or by fewer than five points.

During that stretch, Woodard would miss four games, after starting 115-consecutive, with his first injury of the season. Oklahoma lost all four games.

In Woodard’s first game back, the Sooners actually held a nine-point halftime lead over No. 2 Kansas at home, before ultimately falling 81-70. OU would win their next two games – including an 89-87 road win over No. 7 West Virginia.

When Oklahoma led Iowa State by 18 in the first half three days later, it appeared they were on their way to their first winning streak since November.

It wasn’t going to be that kind of season, though.

The Sooners ultimately lost 92-87 in double overtime.

Falling to the Cyclones kick-started a seven-game losing streak that included losses to rivals Oklahoma State and Texas by a combined three points. That wasn't the worst news of that stretch, however, as Woodard would injure his knee in the rematch against Iowa State in Ames, which meant Oklahoma was now 0-10 without their senior point guard in the lineup and still had six regular season games left on the schedule.

While Hield's production always had to be made up for in the aggregate, the player that everyone expected to fill his shoes as a scoring threat was sophomore Christian James, who came on strong late as a true freshman in 2015-16. His most notable performance came when James hit four three-pointers in a 77-63 win over three-seed Texas A&M to advance Oklahoma to the Elite Eight.

In November and December, James wasn't a superstar, but he performed admirably - scoring double digits in 10 of 12 games to start the year.

However, he would do so just once over the Sooners' final 19 games and James quickly saw his minutes at the hands of talented freshman Kameron McGusty. It didn't appear it was a work ethic or effort issue for James, who showed hustle from the first game of the season through the last, but more of a struggle to find the confidence that once made him one of the best freshman shooters in the Big 12 a year ago.

McGusty was the No. 51 overall player in the 2016 Rivals150 and became the highest ranked Oklahoma signee under Lon Kruger. The highly anticipated freshman took a few weeks to find his groove, but did not disappoint once he eventually entered the starting lineup.

Only Jeff Webster had a longer double-digit scoring streak as a freshman than McGusty’s 15 games from January 3 to February 21.

McGusty’s 14.4 points per game were the third best by a Big 12 freshman in conference play, trailing only Josh Jackson of Kansas and Jarrett Allen of Texas. His 38.0% three-point percentage and 30 three-point field goals were also both second best by a freshman in the conference.

Fellow 2016 Rivals150 member Kristian Doolittle put together an impressive campaign in his first year as well. His 81.1% free throw percentage was fourth best overall in the Big 12 and tops for a freshman. As a rebounder, Doolittle only trailed Jackson and Allen among conference freshmen. Doolittle’s 29 points against Texas was second only to Jackson’s 31 points at Texas Tech for the top scoring game by a freshman in the Big 12.

Having both McGusty and Doolittle in the fold for the next three seasons gives Oklahoma one of the strongest young cores in the conference that will likely only get better.

Hopes were buoyed among Oklahoma fans on February 16 when Norman (Okla.) North five-star point guard Trae Young announced that he would be staying home and committed to the Sooners over Kansas.

The only other five-star prospect from the state of Oklahoma to choose OU before young was eventual unanimous player of the year and No. 1 overall pick, Blake Griffin.

Much of the criticism hurled at Lon Kruger has been aimed at his ability to recruit and bring in top talent to compete. But with Young on board, Kruger will now have two of the highest ranked guards to ever sign with OU in the same backcourt in Young and McGusty.

Young, 2017's No. 14 overall player, is one of the nation's most prolific shooters and scorers, as he averaged over 40 points per game as a senior - scoring much of that with barrages of three-pointers well behind the line.

The hope in Norman is that Young will come in and immediately make this a dynamic offense once again, forcing defenses to stretch themselves further than they're comfortable with and creating more space for his teammates to operate.

Kruger is one of only two coaches in college basketball history to take five teams to the NCAA tournament and just gave Oklahoma its fifth Final Four in school history - the second of his career and same number as Kansas head coach Bill Self.

In 31 years, Kruger hasn’t had back-to-back losing seasons since 1982-85 at Texas-Pan American in his first three years as a college basketball head coach.

While there’s plenty of criticism earned from producing an 11-20 season, Kruger has earned the opportunity and trust to find a new peak out of this uncharted depth – especially considering the context that created it and the young talent on the roster in 2017-18.