Happy Monday, friends and fans!

Lon Kruger, who just wrapped up his eighth season with the Oklahoma Sooners, has confirmed that he intends to close out the remainder of his coaching career at OU.

This comes amid rumors that the future Hall of Famer interviewed for the job at UCLA, which were ultimately denied by Kruger himself later on Sunday night. On Monday, the Sooners’ coach spoke more about why he wants to stay at Oklahoma until his coaching days are done.

There is no telling how many more seasons Kruger will coach at OU. He’ll be 67 before the start of the next college basketball season, so that’s a factor that will eventually come into play. For now, he has Oklahoma recruiting at a high level (DeVion Harmon will be fun to watch), and the core for next season’s team appears to be solid with players like Kristian Doolittle, Jamal Bieniemy, Brady Manek and transfer Austin Reaves in the fold.

Now onto this week’s Monday edition of Hot Links! Hollywood Brown is visiting with the Bucs, Baker Mayfield has revived pro football in Ohio, the Rockets set a new NBA record for three-pointers made in a game and more!

OU Links

• The NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports Marquise Brown is visiting with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers today. As Rap mentions, the Bucs have a pretty sizeable void to fill as far as outside receiving goes with DeSean Jackson and Adam Humphries no longer in the mix for 2019. Also, it’d be pretty cool for Hollywood to play in his home state of Florida, especially with another former Sooner superstar in Gerald McCoy.

• George Stoia from the OU Daily is piecing together a three-part series highlighting three Sooners who all come from different parts of Oklahoma. First up is DB Tre Brown, who began his journey in Tulsa. Stay tuned for the second and third installments to the project later this week, as Shawnee’s Creed Humphrey and Oklahoma City’s Justin Broiles are next.
• Oh this? This is just Spencer Rattler slinging the pigskin around for roughly 225 feet, nothing major. I can hardly wait to watch him in Lincoln Riley’s offense.

• 2020 four-star CB Jacobe Covington says he’s bringing five-star CB Kelee Ringo and four-star S Lathan Ransom with him this week for one of Oklahoma’s biggest recruiting stretches of the year. This is shaping up to be an enormous weekend, so stay tuned.

• Baker Mayfield went from being football enemy No. 1 in Ohio to being its biggest defender. It all started with a famous (or infamous) flag planting in Ohio Stadium, but even that seems like a distant memory now.

Around the Sports World

• The Utah Jazz’s Kyler Korver wrote an insightful piece for The Players’ Tribune on privilege and what his experiences and the experiences of his teammates and others around the NBA have taught him.
• The Houston Rockets made 27 three-pointers in a game, breaking the previous all-time NBA record of 26. Of course it happened against the Phoenix Suns, because they’ve basically become the butt of every joke.

• Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier suffered one of the scariest injuries in football a year and a half ago, leaving many to believe he’d never walk unassisted again. Now look at this man. Keep it up, Ryan, you’re an inspiration to everyone.

• Ryder Cowan out of Edmond, Oklahoma spent his 14th birthday at Augusta National and wound up a finalist in the Drive, Chip and Putt competition. I’d say that’s a pretty cool B-day gift.
• It’s hard to score in soccer, but when it’s this easy, don’t make it hard. Unfortunately for Eric Choupo-Moting, that’s exactly what he did.

Follow Crimson & Cream Machine on Twitter!