Hello, friends and fans of the Oklahoma Sooners. After 23 years, it was quite a run for President David Boren, but as we all know, the torch must be passed eventually. The new president of the University of Oklahoma will be James Gallogly. Gallogly is a former oil & gas executive and a substantial donor to the university — especially within his namesake, the Gallogly College of Engineering. The transition won’t become official until June 30th, but you should check out the OU Daily to find out more about this monumental moment in school history.

Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley were both on the scene for the announcement. This is pretty cool to see because last season it was Stoops passing the torch to Riley with a seismic hand-off. Now Boren is doing the same with Gallogly. With two of the most influential figures now in the rearview, we are truly embarking on a new era at the University of Oklahoma. In case you’re interested, here’s the full video of this morning’s introduction.

Now onto today’s edition of Hot Links! Kam McGusty is transferring, baseball and softball both earn conference sweeps, Trejan Bridges earns MVP honors and more!

OU Links

• Kameron McGusty announces that he is transferring. This is the second player to announce he’s transferring in the past three days. Oklahoma basketball is going to look mighty different next season.

• Oklahoma Baseball was looking mighty fine this weekend versus West Virginia, earning its first conference sweep since 2015. Brylie Ware swung like a man possessed, and Kyler Murray is still a really fast human.

• Freshman pitcher Levi Prater also came up huge over the weekend. Oklahoma Baseball’s present is off to a great start in conference play, but the future with guys like Prater is definitely promising.
• The Oklahoma softball team dominated Texas Tech this weekend with all three games ending in a run-rule. The Sooners now hold the nation’s longest winning streak with 19 straight wins. Check out some highlights from Sunday’s offensive explosion!

• Softball head coach Patty Gasso has four national titles to her name, so she knows what she’s talking about when she preaches patience to her team. From the looks of it, the team is clearly listening, and it’s resulting in some prolific numbers off the bat.
• 2019 wide receiver commit Trejan Bridges took home MVP honors at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge. This wide receiver class could be the most stellar one to date, and Bridges is one of the top talents out there.

Around the Sports World

• With the Kansas Jayhawks advancing to the Final Four, the Big 12 is the only conference to make the “final four” in both football and basketball in 2018. This is certainly not the only time a conference has accomplished this feat, but it’s a good look for the strength and perception of the Big 12 to be the lone league to do so most recently.
• Speaking of the Final Four, what are the chances of winning it all for the four remaining teams in the tournament? Of course, 11th-seeded Loyola-Chicago has the lowest odds, but that’s just how they roll.
• The Oklahoma City Thunder will probably make the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. A reason for that is Carmelo Anthony’s lack of production on a team that needs it from him.
• Tiger Woods announced he has added another golf event to his schedule. Woods will compete at the 2018 National TPC Potomac in Washington D.C. in late June.
• John Higgins is a high-profile official in the college basketball world, but he will not be refereeing any of the game’s final three contests after making an egregious error in a first-round game.
• Folks around Big 12 country are quite familiar with head ref Mike Defee, but after officiating the national championship game, the entire nation got an up-close look at the biceps with legs. Get to know Defee and how maintains his musculature, and also find out what he thinks about his guns going viral.

Stick to Sports!

• Watch your heads this Easter, folks. A Chinese Space Station is falling back down to Earth, and is expected to crash land some time around the first of April. No, this is not some kind of elaborate April Fool’s joke in the making. If it helps you feel any better about being outside, it’s estimated that there’s a one in one trillion chance that you will be struck by any debris from the falling space station. It’s too early to tell exactly where the station will land, so keep your head on a swivel just in case.

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