Another Bedlam game, another collapse from Porter Moser's Sooners
Having never had more wind at their back, the Oklahoma men no-show in front of a full house at Lloyd Noble Center
They had their chance.
Coach Porter Moser’s Sooners had their chance to prove … well, the list is long, so let’s hit some of it.
• That they weren’t the team that fell by 16 points to Oklahoma State the first time around in Stillwater.
• That after stunningly topping then-No. 2 Alabama by 24 points three days earlier, the second half of the Big 12 conference schedule would be a different story than the first.
• That, like any team presumably would, find some carryover from the program’s biggest and most opportune victory in at least two seasons and maybe seven. Indeed, some thought the ’Bama effect would be transformational.
• Of course, the basics: that they remained a competitive program in their state and their conference; that they could carry confidence from their biggest victory in memory for 75 hours to the next tip; that they were a team, especially against their Bedlam rival, ready to win.
They failed on the whole lot.
Even the one about being competitive in their own state, making it a good thing Tulsa and ORU aren’t on the schedule.
The final score, 71-61, was no less a lie than the moving forward promise dominating the nation’s second-ranked team was supposed to deliver.
Because it wasn’t really a 10-point game and it hadn’t been a 10-point game since 90 seconds remained in the first half. And in the interim of that moment and the final score, forged by a who-cares, game’s-over, doesn’t-matter slam from Oklahoma’s Otega Oweh, it was a 16-point game with 19:48 remaining, a 20-point game with 9:03 remaining, a 22-point game with 8:17 remaining and still a 17-point game with 3:43 remaining.
It’s shocking to think a team might quit on its coach three days after a win for the ages, but that seemed to happen, too.
Having briefly cut the deficit to 14, then keeping it there when the pride of Southmoore, Sam Godwin, blocked the shot of OSU’s Woody Newton, Bijan Cortes had OU (12-10, 2-7 Big 12) paradoxically and out-of-character running the court only to have his layup attempt blocked by Caleb Asberry.
The block was good, but Asberry’s lower body may have contributed to the Sooner guard finishing hard on the floor.
That’s when Moser, in a sharp sport coat for a second straight game, decided to get a technical foul and that was when ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said, “If Sooner fans will put down the wine and cheese right now … this place can get raucous and it might give this Sooner team a little energy.”
Yet, the crowd, said to be more than 11,000 on a night they let folks in free if they’d brave the cold to get there, had nothing to get raucous about.
The Sooners’ reaction to their coach’s T was to let the Cowboys go on a 12-4 run, pushing the score to 62-40.
There’s nothing there.
Taking down Alabama, OU shot 57.6 percent (34 of 59), 69.2 percent (6 of 8) from 3-point land and 84.2 percent (16 of 19) from the free-throw line, which happened to be its third best shooting game of the season, best 3-point shooting game of the season and second-best free-throw shooting game of the season, all at once, a confluence of numbers that may not be repeated.
Wednesday, OU regressed to the mean and kept on going, shooting 34.8 percent, 22.7 percent (5 of 22) from beyond the arc and 72.7 percent (24 of 33) from the free-throw line.
The fact OSU (13-9, 4-5) shot 43.3 percent, 25 percent (4 of 16) from deep and only went to the free-throw line 12 times should have boded well for the home team and probably would have except for the stat that never, ever, goes OU’s way: field goals attempted.
The Sooners entered averaging 53 per game, ranking 331st of 363 Division I programs, yet even that was seven more than the 46 they got off against the Cowboys, who got off 67.
Fraschilla said this other great thing too:
About half the second half gone, he offered, “The Sooners are not a pressure team, so it’s going to have to come in the half court.”
He was talking about the defense they needed to play, but he might as well have been talking about the offense too.
OU doesn’t turn opponents over, doesn’t try to score in transition and that’s a heck of a way to go about winning basketball games.
General trends aside, against its Bedlam rival, coming off a huge win, absolutely needing a conference victory, OU just plain sucked Wednesday night at Lloyd Noble Center, getting doubled up in the paint 44-22, skunked on second-chance points 13-2, beaten on the break 5-2 and outrebounded 42 to 32.
Not for the first time, but on a night you’d never expect it less, the Sooners were astonishingly absent.
No shows.
It’s fairly unprecedented to send a head coach packing mid-season. It tends to take perpetrated violence, an arrest, something off the grid and off the charts.
But if Porter Moser fails to make it to his third Norman season, this was his Mike Stoops game.
Maybe you can go two straight season without reaching the NCAA tournament, which hasn’t happened to a Sooner coach since Jeff Capel’s last two seasons, 12 years ago, and keep the job.
Maybe you can go 7-11 or worse two straight conference seasons, yet another bar Capel last failed to clear, and keep the job.
But can you do all that and lose both Bedlam games by a combed 26 points, failing to be competitive in both?
Hard to see how.
Leaving us back where we started.
They had their chance.
Coach Porter Moser’s Sooners had their chance.