Sooners' Student Section Rebuilds with Team

For the past two seasons, the University of Oklahoma men’s basketball team has been below par and expectations. After the firing of head coach Jeff Capel and hiring Lon Kruger, the Sooners look to be back on track for greatness.

Top Daugs secretary Jared Schmidt (Right helmet) cheers
on the Sooners in their second exhibition game of the
2011-2012 season. PHOTO: Joseph Truesdell

In 2009-2010 the Sooners went just 14-18 and didn’t make it past the first round of the Big 12 tournament. Last year the Sooners improved one game in the win column and went one game further in the Big 12 tournament but finished at 15-18 and again missed out on the NCAA tournament.

Following Naismith Award winner Blake Griffin leaving OU early to be the NBA’s number one draft pick, the Sooners have suffered and student attendance has taken a hit with each loss. The Sooners posted a 33-6 record in that 2008-2009 season but following the Elite 8 appearance in the NCAA tournament the program suffered under the direction of Capel.

The Sooners new head coach Lon Kruger has rebuilt programs in the past and since his arrival in the 2011 spring semester he has done the same. Kruger took care of recruiting in the spring and then focused on how to rebuild the fan base that had once thrived during Blake Griffin’s playing days.

The Sooners’ new head coach has met with multiple groups of people about how to get the students and community more involved with the games. Kruger met with over 20 fraternity and sorority presidents about how to get more students to attend games. The coach has made the everyday practices open to the public. Coach Kruger made an announcement just weeks before the season that student season tickets would be discounted by 70 percent, making the tickets only $40 for 16 home games.

The OU student section has undergone a renovation of its own. The name for the past five years has been Capel’s Crew, which obviously doesn’t work now that Capel is gone. The group gathered together and decided to rename the group Top Daugs in memory of OU’s mascot from the 1980’s to 2004.

President of the Top Daugs, Matt Wormus, was a freshman in the 2009-2010 season when the Sooners began their downfall.

“College basketball is one of the few sports where the casual fan can make a difference in the outcome and I wanted to be a part of that here at OU,” Wormus said.

Though Wormus started his OU cheering career while the Sooners were under Capel’s direction, he has noted that he doesn’t mind the change to Kruger.

“Kruger is just a much more open man to the public,” Wormus said, “With Capel it felt like it was dealing with the man behind the curtain, but with Kruger you get exactly what his personality is made of.”

Kruger has been open to the fans about getting them to practices and to the games, but has asked for help from the Top Daugs as well.

“Coach Kruger comes and talks to us before the start of every game,” said secretary of the Top Daugs Jared Schmidt, “Normally talks about the excitement of the game, asks if we are ready to cheer loud and we will discuss ways to get more students into the student section.

The fans that have been to practices or the first two exhibition games realize that the OU program is on the rise, but there are many who don’t.

“Kruger brings a much faster defensive style of play which will be much more popular with the fans. Just have to get the fans to realize that this will not be like the last two years of basketball here are OU,” Wormus said.