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Oklahoma’s alumni weekend honors their 1988 Final Four team

sooners

For the second consecutive year the University of Oklahoma held a Basketball Alumni Weekend, welcoming back past greats and also playing an alumni game.

But this edition was made special by the fact that Oklahoma is entering their 25th season since going to the Final Four in 1988.

Players such as Stacey King, Mookie Blaylock and Ricky Grace were in attendance, as was then-head coach Billy Tubbs.

And early in the second half of the alumni game, which was won 74-60 by Team Cream over Team Crimson, Tubbs re-enacted his address of the Noble Center crowd during a 1989 game against Missouri.

Not long after, Tubbs garnered perhaps the biggest laugh of the day when he was escorted to the scorers’ table by a referee.

“The referees have asked,” said Tubbs, “that regardless of how terrible the play is, or how out of shape the players are, do not throw anything on the floor.”

Tubbs’ comment was a play on his famous 1989 crowd address when he asked the OU fans to not throwing anything on the floor “regardless of how terrible the officiating” in an eventual Sooners’ win over Missouri.


Here’s the original:

As for the game, former Sooner player and current strength coach Joszef Szendrei took home MVP honors, finishing with 14 points and 24 rebounds to lead Team Cream.

Kelly Newton led Team Crimson with a game-high 21 points and Beau Gerber added 19 and ten rebounds, but Team Cream’s balance (four players in double figures) proved to be too much.

Tubbs did have another interesting quote on Saturday, offering his thoughts on how that 35-4 Final Four team (made up primarily of upperclassmen) would have fared against the Anthony Davis-led Kentucky squad that cut down the nets in April:

Kentucky won the 2012 national championship in April starting five freshmen. Tubbs would’ve loved to take his guys up against a group of youngsters. When asked if his squad would have beaten the Wildcats by 40, Tubbs laughed.

“Forty if we played our reserves the last 30 seconds,” he said. “Fifty if we played our first five the whole time.”


It’s probably safe to assume that this comment was made in jest.

Photo credit: Lawrence Journal-World

Raphielle is also the assistant editor at CollegeHoops.net and can be followed on Twitter at @raphiellej.