If you follow the NBA, or have kept tabs on college basketball for quite some time, the last name “Ariza” likely rings a bell.

You’ve probably heard of Trevor Ariza, a former UCLA Bruin who spent 18 seasons in the NBA. A 2009 NBA Champion with the Los Angeles Lakers, Ariza played for 10 franchises during his career, earning a reputation as a lockdown defender with the ability to flat-out shoot the basketball.

Now, Trevor’s son, Tajh, is next up. Regarded as one of the top overall prospects in the Class of 2026, Tajh Ariza has a slew of offers to sort through. That list of offers got bigger on Thursday when Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program extended an offer his way.

Ariza posted about his offer from the UNC basketball program on social media, thanking Davis and the Tar Heels coaching staff for believing in him and his ability.

A Bellflower, California native, Ariza is a 6-foot-9, 195-pound small forward. He is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 7 overall player in the Class of 2026 and is tabbed as the No. 5-ranked player from the competitive state of California.

Take a minute to think about this aspect: of the five players ranked ahead of him in California, two come from the same high school (Brandon McCoy and Christian Collins). It’s probably a safe bet to say that St. John Bosco is going to be a force to be reckowned with this season!

While his father already cemented his legacy in the basketball world, Tajh Ariza looks to do the same for himself. Could Chapel Hill be that place where he begins his rise to the professional ranks?

Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program would love to see him sporting a Carolina Blue uniform next season.

The 2025 Oklahoma baseball season came to an unceremonial end a couple of weeks ago in the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional.

The Sooners finished the season with a 38-22 overall record but just 14-16 in their first season in the SEC, a conference that boasts seven of the last 10 national champions and, top to bottom, is widely considered the strongest in college baseball.

Oklahoma’s 38 wins this season were only two fewer than a year ago, when the Sooners went 40-21 and exited the Big 12 after winning the 2024 Big 12 regular-season title. Twenty-three of OU’s 40 wins a year ago, or 57 percent, were against Big 12 opponents.

Against a much stronger group of conference opponents this season in the SEC, the Sooners managed just 14 wins, or 37 percent, of their total wins.

Oklahoma’s 12th-place finish in the SEC standings, not surprisingly, was in relatively close alignment with where the Sooners ranked in most every major statistical category: OU was 12th in the conference in hitting (.278 team batting average), 11th in runs scored (6.7 per game), 12th in home runs (70), 8th in earned run average (4.47), 9th in opponents’ batting average (.247) and 13th in fielding percentage (.971).

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, for Sooner baseball in its inaugural SEC season. Oklahoma did qualify for its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament, won five of 10 conference series and defeated 13-seed Kentucky and 5-seed Georgia in the SEC Baseball Tournament before losing in the quarterfinal round to tournament champion Vanderbilt.

Accolades from OU baseball in 2025, hope for future

Player of the Year

Junior catcher Easton Carmichael gets my vote as the Sooners’ Player of the Year. The Prosper, Texas, native led the team in hitting (.329 average), hits (80), runs batted in (62), home runs (17) and slugging percentage (.613). He also was exceptional behind the plate, committing just one error the entire season and only five passed balls.

Carmichael is one of several Sooners expected to be taken in next month’s 2025 MLB Draft. He will likely be drafted in one of the early rounds. He is one of two OU players to be named a 2025 First-Team All-American by Perfect Game. It is the second season the Oklahoma catcher has earned All-America honors.

Pitcher of the Year

There shouldn’t be much debate about this. Kyson Witherspoon, the team’s Friday night starter, was outstanding all season. The junior right-hander not only was the ace of the Oklahoma pitching staff, but was one of the best pitcher’s in the SEC during the 2025 season.

Witherspoon had a 10-4 record this season and a 2.65 ERA in 16 starts. His 10 wins led the SEC and ranked 9th nationally. Additionally, he struck out 124 batters, 5th-most in NCAA Division I baseball, averaging over 11 punch outs per game.

The Sooner First-Team All-American is a probable first-round selection in the MLB Draft.

Roster turnover is a net positive for next season

Oklahoma will lose catcher Scott Mulder, relief pitcher Jamie Hitt and closer Dylan Crooks to graduation and will likely also lose pitching brothers Kyson and Malachi Witherspoon, as well as Easton Carmichael, to the MLB Draft.

Seven of the nine players in the Sooners’ starting lineup for the final game of the 2025 season are expected back for next season. The team will need pitching help after losing two weekend starters and its closer.

First basemen Dayton Tockery, second baseman Kyle Branch, shortstop Jaxon Willits and third baseman Dawson Willis, along with outfielders Jason Walk, Trey Gambill and Dasan Harris, should all be back for the 2026 season. Six members of that group were underclassmen this season with two freshmen and four sophomores.

Redshirt sophomore first baseman Sam Christianson was the only starting position player to enter the transfer portal so far. Reserve freshman catcher Cole Hansen, brother of four-time softball national champion catcher Kinzie Hansen, also elected to transfer.

Transfer portal additions

Since the season ended, Oklahoma has added five players from the transfer portal:

RHP Joey McManiss had a 1-2 record in 10 starts and 18 appearances for Maryland in 2025 with a 6.25 ERA.

INF Camden Johnson hit .356 in 56 games for Wichita this past season.

Nolan Stevens (INF/OF/P) joined Oklahoma from Mississippi State, where he hit .325 with four home runs and 21 RBI this season.

RHP LJ Mercurius was an All-Mountain West Second-Team selection in 2025. He made 11 starts for UNLV with a 4-3 record, a 3.57 ERA and 58 strikeouts in 53 innings.

UTIL Cayden Brumbaugh, from Edmond, Oklahoma, spent one season at Oklahoma State before transferring to Nebraska. As a redshirt junior this season, he hit .309 with five home runs and 33 RBI.

As far as incoming freshmen, the Sooners’ 2025 baseball recruiting class is headlined by infielder Eli Willits, a national top-10 recruit. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Eli is the younger brother of Oklahoma starting shortstop Jaxon Willits and the son of former Sooner player and current associate head coach Reggie Willits, who played at OU in 2002-03. However, Eli will likely never get to OU as a projected top-10 MLB Draft pick.

Read more about OU baseball

Last Updated on June 20, 2025

The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved extensive changes to college basketball officiating on June 10, which will significantly alter how games are officiated beginning in the 2025-26 season. The decision is the most significant change to replay protocol since video review was introduced in college basketball.

Men’s and women’s basketball each received their own challenge rules, with the NCAA creating separate systems for both games. The changes follow data that showed out-of-bounds reviews caused most game delays, especially late in games when every call matters more.

The financial stakes extend well beyond court performance, as these rule changes arrive amid the expansion of sports wagering in college athletics. Digital platforms, which include many of the top crypto sportsbooks that process Bitcoin and other digital currencies for deposits and withdrawals, have established new revenue channels for the industry. These platforms provide competitive odds across multiple sports markets with decentralized payment systems that attract tech-focused bettors.

Improved officiating matters more now that sports betting has become such a big business, whether bettors use regular money or cryptocurrencies. The timing coincides with major changes coming to college athletics through the House settlement, which will reshape how schools pay athletes.

For the new challenge rules, men’s basketball follows the NBA model closely. Coaches get one challenge per game but need a timeout to use it. Teams can dispute calls about who touched the ball last, basket interference, goaltending, and whether defenders were inside the restricted area. Win the first challenge and they get another one for the rest of the game, including overtime. Lose it and that’s their only shot.

Committee chair Karl Hicks, who works as the American Athletic Conference’s associate commissioner for basketball, laid out why the panel made this choice. Tournament and conference data showed substantial numbers of reviews focused on out-of-bounds plays, which created lengthy delays that disrupted game flow. The committee examined basketball leagues worldwide before it settled on the NBA’s one-plus-one challenge system as the most efficient solution.

Women’s basketball works differently. Coaches can challenge out-of-bounds calls, backcourt violations, possession changes before fouls, and wrong foul assignments without using timeouts. But there’s a catch – miss on a challenge and the team gets a technical foul for excessive timeouts. Women’s coaches face no cap on total challenges, though the technical foul penalty acts as an effective constraint.

The panel also approved modifications to continuous motion rules and officiating protocols. Referees gained a new option for groin contact – they can call it a Flagrant 1 instead of choosing between a regular foul or a Flagrant 2 that kicks players out. The changes address criticism that officials were forced into extreme penalties for relatively minor contact.

Officials keep the power to review timing problems, scoring errors, shot clock issues, or flagrant fouls on their own. However, out-of-bounds reviews can only occur through coach challenges, which removes officials’ discretion in these situations.

The committee also recommended that men’s basketball explore a shift from halves to quarters, though implementation faces obstacles related to media timeouts and commercial inventory. A working group will study the potential change and provide feedback for future rule cycles.

College basketball has faced growing pressure to fix its officiating problems while keeping games competitive. The challenge systems should catch big mistakes without making games drag on longer, something fans have complained about as reviews became more common over the past ten years.

The new rules take effect when the 2025 season starts in the fall. Coaches and officials will have several months to learn the systems before conference games begin.

Following the Indiana Pacers’ 108-91 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, superstar guard Tyrese Haliburton preached the importance of blocking out any outside noise entering Sunday’s Game 7.

Speaking to reporters following Indiana’s series-extending victory (beginning at the 2:05 mark of video), Haliburton expressed his belief that the Pacers have to focus solely on what they plan to do on the court in Game 7, and nothing else (h/t ESPN’s Jamal Collier):

“The narratives are going to be almost poison. To talk about what this would mean to our city and our organization and legacy talk, and we played so well and now the pressure is on [the Thunder] … there’s going to be narratives that we can’t really pay attention to.

“We’ve got to control what we can. So much of these games has come down to who is going to start the fight from a physicality standpoint, take care of the ball better and rebound the ball better. Those are the important things that we need to focus on. I don’t even want to say, celebrate this one tonight and move on. It’s done with. We did our job to take care of home court, and we have to be ready to compete in Game 7.”

Haliburton has taken some personal steps to remain locked in during the NBA Finals, including limiting his social media usage.

When asked about the fact that he hasn’t posted on X since June 6, which was the day after Indiana beat OKC in Game 1 of the Finals, Haliburton confirmed that he has kept his social media time to a minimum (beginning at the 3:50 mark of video).

Haliburton said he has “tried my best” to stay off social media by deleting the apps off his phone, although he did admit to going on X from time to time in order to keep up with WWE news.

While Haliburton has been paramount to the Pacers’ playoff success, it was uncertain until Thursday whether he would be able to suit up in Game 6 after suffering a calf strain in Game 5.

Head coach Rick Carlisle monitored Haliburton’s minutes, but he still managed to make a sizable impact with 14 points, five assists and two steals in 23 minutes of action.

Now, Haliburton is set to lead the Pacers into what could be a franchise-defining game for both organizations.

The Pacers have a chance to win their first-ever NBA title and their first championship of any kind since winning their third ABA title in four years in 1973.

Meanwhile, the Thunder are looking to secure their first championship since moving to Oklahoma City, and the first title for the franchise since the Seattle SuperSonics won it all in 1979.