Lon Kruger is in his sixth campaign as head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners and 31st season of coaching college basketball. Kruger, who has been leaving his trademark rebuilding stamp on college basketball programs throughout his career, is the 33rd head coach to win 600 Division I games and owns the 10th most victories among active coaches. He was the first Division I coach to ever take five different schools to the NCAA Tournament and the only coach to win an NCAA Tournament game with five different teams.  In 2014-15, he became the first coach since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to take four programs to the Sweet 16 or beyond.

Kruger owns a 20-17 record in NCAA Tournament games and has compiled 16 20-plus-win seasons, including nine in the last 11 years. He has guided teams to 17 NCAA Tournaments, five Sweet 16s and two Final Fours – most recently taking Oklahoma to the 2016 Final Four in Houston.

After inheriting a program that went 27-36 (.429) in the two seasons prior to his arrival, Kruger has coached the Sooners to a 111-57 (.661) record in his five years in Norman. Over the last four campaigns, OU has posted a 96-41 (.701) mark and advanced to the NCAA Tournament each season, capped by a trip to the 2016 Final Four. Following the 2013-14 season, he was voted the AP Big 12 Coach of the Year.

Under Kruger, Sooner players have earned First-Team All-Big 12 selections on three occasions and racked up 18 Academic All-Big 12 honors. Buddy Hield, who played four seasons for Kruger (2012-16), was named the winner of the 2016 Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy and the Oscar Robertson Trophy as the national player of the year (first consensus player of the year for OU since Blake Griffin in 2009). Hield was named Big 12 Player of the Year in both 2015 and 2016 (second player in conference history to win the award twice) and exited OU as the Big 12's all-time leading scorer.

Three Sooners have been drafted into the NBA during Kruger’s tenure. Hield was selected as the sixth overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft while Isaiah Cousins (2016) and Romero Osby (2013) were chosen in the second round of their respected drafts.

What makes Kruger's 600 wins and NCAA Tournament trips with five different programs even more impressive than they might first seem is the condition of the programs when they hired him and the rebuilding jobs he faced at each.  In the year before his arrival as head coach at Texas-Pan American, Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma, the schools combined for a 78-99 record (.441).  Kruger's teams went a combined 92-89 (.508) in his first year at those schools, 117-72 (.619) in his second year, 114-74 (.606) in his third year and 115-49 (.697) in his fourth season.  He directed all six programs to 20-win campaigns and took each of the last five to the NCAA Tournament or NIT by his second year. Not only has Kruger taken Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma to the NCAA Tournament, he has guided each to at least two appearances in college basketball's marquee event.

Kruger also spent a four-year stint in the NBA -- three as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks (69-122) and one as a New York Knicks assistant -- followed before he returned to the college ranks at UNLV  in 2004.

As a player, the native of Silver Lake, Kan., helped lead Kansas State to back-to-back Big Eight Conference titles in 1972 and 1973.  After being touted as the Big Eight Sophomore of the Year in 1972, he was honored as the league's player of the year in 1973 and 1974.  Kruger was selected to the all-time All-Big Eight Team (third team) and was named "Mr. Hustle" all-time in the Big Eight. On Feb. 8, 2006, Kruger was honored during a halftime ceremony at a Kansas State game by having his No. 12 jersey retired.

He was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the ninth round of the 1974 NBA Draft.  He also starred on the baseball diamond for Kansas State and was drafted by the Houston Astros in 1970 and the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974.  An all-around athlete, Kruger even got some football notice after graduating from KSU when the Dallas Cowboys invited him to their 1974 rookie camp as a quarterback.

Kruger has been involved in a host of charities, especially the Coaches vs. Cancer program that is sponsored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.  He was instrumental in starting the Coaches vs. Cancer's Las Vegas Classic, which has raised more than $2 million over the last seven years to benefit research, education and treatment programs for the American Cancer Society.  In 2012, he received the national Coaches vs. Cancer Champion Award for his work with the organization.

Born on Aug. 19, 1952, Kruger graduated from Kansas State in 1975 with a degree in business and earned his master's degree in physical education from Pittsburg State in 1977.  He and his wife, Barbara, have two children: daughter Angie and son Kevin, who was named an assistant coach for the Sooners this past summer.  Angie was married to Mike Ciklin in the fall of 2008. The couple has two children, a daughter named Avery and son named Wyatt, and live in Norman.