Stillwater, Okla. -– They dedicated a memorial in Colorado on Aug. 25 to the 10 members of the Oklahoma State basketball team and athletic department staff who died on a wintry night last January. It happened when an 11-seat, twin-prop plane crashed in a field near Denver while on the way home from a game in Colorado.

The circular, black granite monument is built low to the ground and just 100 yards from the crash site. It is etched with the names of pilot Denver Mills, co-pilot Bjorn Fahlstrom, players Nate Fleming and Daniel Lawson, sports information official Will Hancock, director of basketball operations Pat Noyes, trainer Brian Luinstra, student manager Jared Weiberg, broadcast engineer Kendall Durfey and Bill Teegins, the radio voice of Oklahoma State sports. There are words of remembrance and an arrow pointing toward Stillwater.

Forward Andre Williams, who shared an apartment with Lawson, asked to be included with the official Oklahoma State party that made the pilgrimage to the site last August. But as he traipsed through the high prairie it was impossible not to detect bits of debris from the Beechcraft King Air B200.

“It was real hard going out there because I just never pictured something like that happening," Williams said. “Then, when you get out there and see there’s nothing out there, just open land, no trees... I just felt they deserved more than that. I mean, they shouldn’t have gone out like that."

This rural, Dust Bowl state has been forced to live with the specter of tragedies –- the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building that took 168 lives, the 1999 tornadoes that devastated large parts of towns like Moore and Stroud, and now this.

It’s hard to believe it’s already one year later, hard to believe the National Transportation Safety Board still has not come up with an official reason why the crash occurred. There was no distress call, although NTSB investigators have indicated an electrical failure, which could have caused the pilots to lose control.

The pain still exists in this tight-knit community.

At the request of the families, Oklahoma State took a low-key approach to the commemoration of the tragedy’s anniversary recently. The university observed a moment of silence at halftime of the OSU-Colorado men’s game at the new Gallagher-Iba Arena. Local churches and the Edmond Low Library tolled their bells 10 times at 6:37 p.m. the next night to commemorate the moment of the crash.

At the end of the regular season, OSU will dedicate a memorial to the crash victims inside Gallagher-Iba. The ceremony will take place Feb. 23. The memorial design shares elements with the Colorado memorial, but will also include a commissioned sculpture of a kneeling Cowboy titled, “We Will Remember."

Eddie Sutton, who wears an orange and black pin with the number "10", still remembers. He was on one of the two jets that made it home safely in the snowy weather.

“There’s not a day that goes by that something doesn’t remind me of one of them," he said. “It could be a picture in my office, or a telephone call or when I walk into Gallagher-Iba or when I get on an airplane or do a radio interview and think of Bill Teegins. I’ve had many sleepless nights."

Sutton, who is closing in on 700 career wins in a Hall of Fame career, has been coaching college basketball for 36 years. He has taken four different schools –- Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State -- to the NCAA Tournament. But he also has been through his share of personal crises. He left Kentucky in 1989 under a cloud of suspicion that resulted in severe NCAA probation. He admits to having a drinking problem when he was younger. Still, it was left to Sutton to summon enough courage to hold that fragile team together last winter. And he couldn’t have performed more admirably, coaching the Cowboys to the NCAA Tournament under the most adverse of circumstances.

The accident helped give Sutton and his players a new perspective on winning and losing. His approach has struck a compassionate cord with Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cowboys’ biggest rival in the Big 12 Conference.

“Given who I coach and who he coaches, there’s going to be a big rivalry," Sampson said. “But something like this puts everything in perspective. I would just hope if I had to go through something like this, I would handle it with the same class and courage as he has."

Sutton, who traveled to Tulsa two days after the crash to witness the birth of a granddaughter, has coped by spending more time with his own family. “I took Patsy with some alums over to Italy this summer," he said. “When you go into Europe, there’s not too many people who want to talk basketball. They might talk soccer. For 10 days, something to take my mind off basketball. I think my wife and my children have helped me during the past year.

“Sean is here on the staff with me, but I try to call my two sons who aren’t with me every day just to tell them I love them because a family is the most important thing in any man’s life. When you look back and try to find positive things, that’s probably the most positive thing that’s happened to me," Sutton said. “It’s made me realize accidents do happen. I could be in an accident tomorrow, have a heart attack and be gone. When I leave here, I want to make sure I’ve made amends with everybody and my family will know how much I care about them."

SOARING SOONERS: Norman, Okla., could well be the home of next year’s preseason No. 1 in basketball.

We saw the sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners dust off Missouri, 84-71, recently in a Big Monday game at Lloyd Noble Arena. Truth is, the Sooners have a legitimate shot at joining second-ranked, Big 12 favorite Kansas for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The frightening thing is that OU may still be a year away from reaching its enormous potential. Given the fact 6-8, 250-pound forward Aaron McGhee is the only senior starter and none of the four others are NBA lottery picks yet, we expect the Sooners to return a nucleus that could make them the most dangerous team in the country.

Consider the pieces OU coach Kelvin Sampson will have at his disposal:

– -Jabarhi Brown, a 6-10 sophomore transfer from Florida International, is already the best shot-blocker in the Big 12.

-– Ebi Ere, a 6-5 junior from Butler Junior College in Kansas, is the Sooners’ leading scorer. He could be the best wing forward in the league, and that includes Kareem Rush of Missouri.

-– Junior guards Hollis Price and Quannas White are two of he best-kept secrets in the country.

If that’s not enough, Sampson has two impact players -– 6-9 forward Matt Gipson and 6-8 forward Johnny Gilbert -– sitting out as medical redshirts. And he has signed 6-8, 250-pound future Olympic shot putter Kevin Bookout from Stroud and 6-5 guard DeAngelo Alexander from Midwest City High -– two of the top five prospects in this loaded state.

The last time folks out here were this excited about the Sooners was 1988, when Billy Tubbs’ high-scoring team advanced to the NCAA finals, and two years later when the Sooners were ranked No. 1 in the final regular-season polls. Tubbs was flamboyant, Sampson is more low-key. But he has coached OU to seven straight NCAA Tournaments.

“From that standpoint," he said, “we’ve been as consistent as most of the elite programs in the country. We just haven’t been as dramatic."

OU thought it had made a national splash just before the holidays when the Sooners thumped third-ranked Maryland, 72-56, at Norman in a game where they outrebounded the Terps 42-26. Too bad voters, who continue to rank the Terps ahead of OU in the AP and coaches’ polls, apparently missed it.

It is hard to miss the Sooners, who are averaging 88.8 points, when they climb all over the offensive glass and get out in transition.

“This is the best offensive team we’ve had since I’ve been here," Sampson admitted. “You have to guard everybody on the floor. Aaron McGhee can shoot 1-for-11 like he did at UConn and we can still win. Ebi Ere can struggle, like he did against Missouri, and we can win."

Price and White did most of the damage against Missouri, blistering the Tigers for a combined 38 points. Both were project kids from New Orleans who played for the legendary Bernard Griffith at St. Augustine, a perennial Louisiana state power that has also produced players like Kerry Kittles, Donald Royal, Eugene Edgerson and Avery Johnson. The two became close friends at St. Augustine, winning two state titles.

Sampson took a close look at both, but only offered Price because he thought he would be solid at the point with J.R. Raymond. When Sampson had to dismiss Raymond from the team last spring, he immediately contacted White, who was at Midland, Texas, JC. “I told the coaches, ‘Just get him to visit,’ " Price said. “I’ll sign him."

'NOLES ROLL: I don’t care how upside-down the ACC has become, Florida State should still get extra credit for beating Duke and North Carolina in same season for first time in school history.

Dick “Hoops” Weiss is a sports columnist for The New York Daily News and has covered 29 Final Fours.