MAIN Basketball College Basketball Oklahoma Sooners

Head coach Jeff Capel and the Oklahoma Sooners reached the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament - the top of the college basketball world - in the 2007-2008 season and passed that with a Sweet Sixteen appearance in the 2009 Tournament. Capel is keeping up a long Sooners tradition of winning postseason play.

The Oklahoma Sooners is the University of Oklahoma, NCAA Division I men's basketball team. They currently play in the Big 12 Conference.

The University of Oklahoma was a charter member of the Southwest Athletic Conference (SWC) from 1914 to 1919. Then Oklahoma left the SWC and joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In 1928, the association divided and the Sooners were one of the teams that formed the Big Six Conference. With the addition of two additioanl schools, the Big Six became the Big Eight Conference. Four more universities were added in 1996 and the name was changed one last time to — the Big 12 Conference.

The University of Oklahoma men's basketball team has had good luck in head coaches.

Billy Tubbs brought the team to national attention during his reign as head coach for the Sooners from 1981 through 1994. Under Coach Tubbs the Oklahoma men's basketball team made 10 NCAA Tournament Appearances, one Final Four appearance, and one National Title Game appearance in 1988. The Sooners had two Conference Tournament Titles and 5 Conference Regular Season Titles in the Big 8 while Tubbs was coaching.

Following the resignation of Billy Tubbs, Coach Kelvin Sampson took over. It was a good match. The Sooners went to the postseason every year during his tenure at the University of Oklahoma. In 2002, the Sooners played in the NCAA Tournament Final Four where they lost to the Indiana Hoosiers.

The Sooners hold the record with their streak of 25 straight post season appearances. Sampson left OU in 2006 after coaching his team through 10 NCAA Tournament Appearances and one Final Four appearance. In the Big 12, the Sooners under Sampson won three Conference Tournament Titles and one Conference Regular Season Title.

Many Sooners have gone on to play professional basketball. Blake Griffin, Wayman Tisdale, Alvan Adams and Mookie Blaylock are only three of them whose names should be familiar.

More about Oklahoma Sooners basketball around the Web:

University of Oklahoma - Men's Basketball - Official site of the Sooners - News, roster, schedule, updated stats, recruitment info, detailed bio of coach Jeff Capel, and lots of other info on the Sooners Men's Basketball team as well as all of the other teams at Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Sooners - NCAA College Basketball at CBSSports - Team page for the Sooners men's basketball team featuring message boards, lots of different rankings, team report, schedule, stats, roster, RPI breakdown and lots of other Sooner focused data.

SI.com University of Oklahoma Sooners - Sports Illustrated team page for OU Sooners men's basketball team featuring comprehensive information, the roster, standings, stats, rankings, game-by-game, conference page and conference scores.

Yahoo! Sports College Basketball - Oklahoma Sooners - This site is the place to visit to get scores, schedule rankings, standings, stats, team photos and live broadcasts.

Sooner Fans Basketball Forum - Forum all about the Sooners Basketball team for fans to share comments and congratulations, talk about team chances and players and other fan related topics.

University of Oklahoma Sooners NCAA News - All Sooners news, all the time, with links to breaking stories, player profiles and magazine articles around the Web, from Topix.net