QUICK PREVIEW
Making its 27th NCAA Tournament appearance and first under second-year head coach Lon Kruger, Oklahoma (20-11 overall, 11-7 Big 12 Conference) enters Friday's second-round game against San Diego State (22-10 overall, 9-7 Mountain West Conference) as the South Region's No. 10 seed. The contest, which will be played at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pa., will start at approximately 8:20 p.m. CDT. San Diego State is the region's No. 7 seed.
Should it advance to third-round play, Oklahoma will face the winner of Friday's (No. 2 seed) Georgetown versus (No. 15 seed) Florida Gulf Coast University game on Sunday. The Hoyas sport a 25-6 record while the Eagles are 24-10. Also in Philadelphia participating in the Midwest Region are No. 2 seed Duke, No. 7 seed Creighton, No. 10 seed Cincinnati and No. 15 seed Albany.
OKLAHOMA AND THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
OU is making its 27th NCAA Tournament appearance (36-26 all-time record), 14th in the last 19 years and 23rd in the last 31 seasons (first since 2009).
The Sooners have made four Final Four appearances (1939, 1947, 1988 and 2002). They played in the 1947 and 1988 national championship games.
Oklahoma is 12-6 in its last six NCAA Tournaments, with a Final Four showing in 2002 and Elite Eight appearances in 2003 and 2009.
Romero Osby is the only active player on OU's roster who has NCAA Tournament experience. As a Mississippi State freshman in 2009, Osby finished with three points, two rebounds and a steal (12 minutes) in a 71-58 first-round loss to Washington.
The Sooners are 3-2 as participants in the South Region. They lost a 2001 first-round game to Indiana State (70-68 in OT in Memphis) and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2009 (lost to eventual national champion North Carolina, 72-60, in Memphis).
PREVIEWING SAN DIEGO STATE
San Diego State tied for fourth place in the Mountain West Conference with a 9-7 league mark and enters NCAA Tournament play with a 22-10 overall record. The Aztecs went 1-1 in the MWC Tournament, beating Boise State 73-67 before losing 60-50 to New Mexico in the semifinals. They began the year 11-1 (won 11 in a row) and have gone 11-9 since. SDSU posted a 14-1 home record (lone loss was to UNLV by seven) and went 8-9 away from home.
The Aztecs are making their school-record fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance and ninth overall. They own a 2-8 record in the Big Dance. Both of their wins came two years ago when they advanced to the Sweet 16 (beat Northern Colorado and Temple before losing to Connecticut).
Junior guard Jamaal Franklin leads the team with his 16.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game. A two-time first-team All-Mountain West pick, he was the only player in the league to rank in the top three in scoring, rebounds and steals in the regular season. Franklin scored in double figures in all 16 conference games and has netted at least 20 points nine times on the year. He has attempted 220 free throws (the next highest total on the team is 95) and is shooting .771 at the line.
Senior guard Chase Tapley was named to the All-Mountain West Third Team and averages 13.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.4 steals. He has made a team-high 66 3-pointers on the year (2.1 per game) and is shooting a team-best .379 from behind the arc.
Junior guard Xavier Thames averages 9.8 points and 2.2 assists. He ranks third on the team with his 35 3-point makes (shooting .361) and has teamed with Franklin and Tapley to can 139 of the squad's 188 treys on the year (74 percent).
Steve Fisher is in his 14th year as SDSU's head coach and owns a 280-170 record. He is in his 22nd year overall and is 464-252 in his career. He coached Michigan to the 1989 national title (Oklahoma was a No. 1 seed that year but did not face the Wolverines).
KRUGER AND THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
With this year's berth, Lon Kruger is the first head coach in history to take five Division I programs to the NCAA Tournament (Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma). Coaches who have taken four programs to the Big Dance are current mentors John Beilein, Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith, and former head men Lefty Driesell, Jim Harrick, Tom Penders and Eddie Sutton.
This marks Kruger's 14th NCAA Tournament appearance as a head coach. He owns a 14-13 record and is 8-5 in first-round games (his teams have won five of their last seven tournament openers). In his last coaching stop at UNLV, Kruger took the Runnin' Rebels to the NCAA Tournament in four of his final five seasons there.
Kruger is one three coaches to ever direct four programs to at least one NCAA Tournament win. The others are Harrick and Sutton.
Kruger has coached three programs to the Sweet 16 or beyond (only Pitino, Smith, John Calipari and Bill Self have also done it). He took Kansas State to the 1988 Elite Eight, Florida to the 1994 Final Four and UNLV to the 2007 Sweet 16.
Kruger participated in the 1972 and '73 NCAA Tournaments as a player at Kansas State and helped the Wildcats to regional final (Elite Eight) appearances both seasons. K-State went 1-1 in 1972 when Kruger was the Big Eight sophomore of the year (beat Texas 66-55 before losing 72-65 to Louisville). The Wildcats again went 1-1 in 1973 when Kruger was the Big Eight player of the year (beat Louisiana-Lafayette 66-63 before falling 92-72 to Memphis).
