The best bang for your basketball buck isn’t in downtown Oklahoma City this basketball season. The basketball storyline in Oklahoma isn’t OKC’s faux claim of having a Super Team which will challenge for an NBA championship.
The best basketball experience in the state this season resides in Norman, Oklahoma with Lon Kruger’s Sooners and his phenomenal freshman point guard Trae Young.
OU improved to 9-1 last night with an easy win over Northwestern State, Louisiana. The Sooners have wins over Wichita State, USC, and Oregon on their nonconference resume so far. The Sooners close out their non-conference schedule this week-end with a game against Northwestern from the Big 10. OU’s lone loss came against Arkansas in the Portland tournament which boasted an elite field of teams.
If you haven’t gone to see Trae Young in person you need to because he leads the nation in scoring and last night tied the NCAA record with 22 assists in a single game. It would not be hyperbole at all to claim Young could very well be a leading candidate for national player of the year honors.
Young played his high school ball at nearby Norman North and was on everyone’s covet list as a high school recruit, but decided to stay ten minutes from home. Originally, I thought Young would at least play two seasons of college ball, but I’m not so sure right now he’s not a one and done.
But it’s not just Young on this Sooner team, Lon Kruger has put together a nice compliment of players around Young who should make the Sooners an entertaining watch once Big 12 play starts after Christmas. The Big 12 is rugged, even TCU with Jaime Dixon is ranked and tough. There are no easy outs in Big 12 hoops.
So while this is a Thunder blog, I’ll be keeping an eye on Trae Young and the Sooners. The Thunder dysfunction is too much. It’s wearing me out. It’s almost worse than the Trump presidency. So, for my mental health I think I’m going to add OU hoops on here this season so as I don’t go completely bat fuck crazy blogging on Sam Presti’s Little Miss Sunshine Experience.