Oklahoma Sooners

The Oklahoma Sooners play at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, a program with a long, deep NCAA Tournament history despite never quite crossing the finish line for a national title. Crimson-and-cream crowds have watched five separate Final Four runs across nearly a century of Sooner basketball, spanning eras from the tournament's earliest years to the 2010s. Oklahoma made the move from the Big 12 to the SEC in 2024, adding a new chapter to its basketball tradition in a deeper, more physical conference.

Oklahoma has reached the Final Four five times -- 1939, 1947, 1988, 2002, and 2016 -- more than almost any program never to win a national championship. The Sooners came closest in 1988, falling 83-76 to Danny Manning and Kansas in the title game. Billy Tubbs's high-scoring 1988 team and later runs under Kelvin Sampson and Lon Kruger kept Oklahoma among the sport's most persistent tournament threats, even without a championship banner to show for it.