It will be a homecoming for Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger, who played his collegiate ball at Kansas State, where he was a two-time Big Eight Player of the Year (1973 and 1974) and led the Wildcats to back-to-back conference championships in 1972 and 1973. He also led his alma mater as K-State head coach in the early part of his career.
In four seasons as Kansas State’s head coach, Kruger won 81 games, including leading the Cats to a second-place finish in the Big Eight behind Oklahoma in 1987-88 and an Elite Eight appearance that season in the NCAA Tournament, where K-State lost to Kansas, which went on to defeat heavily favored Oklahoma in the national championship game.