Lon Kruger Discusses Upcoming Season

News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – New Oklahoma basketball coach Lon Kruger stopped by the News9 office Sunday and discussed the upcoming Sooner season with Dean Blevins and John Holcomb.

The Sooners are coming off a disappointing season in which they went 5-11 in conference play – which included an eight-game losing streak – and finished tied for 11th in the Big 12. The school fired head coach Jeff Capel after the season and announced the hiring of Kruger on April 1.

Kruger began his head coaching career in 1982 and now has led a total of seven programs. He holds a career record of 479-304 and has made a total of 13 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, including taking UNLV to tournament berths in each of the last two years. He expects nothing less out of his OU team.

"Every team has that as a goal to start out, and it's a healthy goal," Kruger said. "One that Oklahoma and the Big 12 Conference expect and have as a goal to make the NCAA Tournament, and our guys plan on doing that."

Kruger has been taking time to get to know his new players and said he has been impressed by the amount of work they have put in this summer.

"I'm very pleased with their work ethic," Kruger said. "No surprise; Coach Capel's teams have always worked hard. No surprise there. They know how to work and they want to have a good basketball team and they want to compete successfully, and they've shown that with their investment this summer."