At Bedlam, McCollum caps a classic, saves Sooners' season, Porter's Moser's job
At Bedlam, McCollum caps a classic, saves Sooners' season, Porter's Moser's job
If Porter Moser finds himself linked to yet another Chicagoland Catholic university’s men’s basketball job, maybe we should start believing he wants out of Norman and sooner rather than later he’ll find a way to depart.
Until then, we can instead believe that with no time remaining, a defender in his face after, let’s face it, an awful last-chance overtime possession, Javian McCollum, who’d canned 11 of his previous 58 3-point attempts, saved the job Moser has right now and claims to want into the future.
“He has the ability to make tough shots,” said the OU coach. “… That was a great play by Javian to cap off an amazing game.”
The long range health of the program for which he coaches notwithstanding, good or bad, that’s the undercurrent to what happened Saturday afternoon inside Gallagher-Iba Arena, Stillwater’s finest brick structure, which appeared to come to life in the neighborhood of the finest days of yore.
Above that undercurrent, Oklahoma played its finest and most clutch second half of the season to come back and knock off Oklahoma State 84-82.
So many questions.
Not about how the Sooners did it, but about where such an effort had been prior to Saturday’s second half.
OU had posted a 40-point second half just three times the length of the conference season before Saturday and not one of them away from home. Yet, the Sooners came up with 42 the first 20 post-intermission minutes and 12 more in the five-minute OT frame to prevail following an eight-point halftime deficit.
OU had gotten off 54 field goal attempts or fewer each of its previous six games, making it, yet again, among the slowest paced teams in the nation. Yet, Saturday, it was 69 total, 63 in regulation.
Getting nothing or next to it from both McCollum and Otega Oweh for so much of the conference campaign, not once did Moser decide to start, say, Rivaldo Soares in front of either. Yet, Saturday, Soares, OU’s best player for more than a month, got the nod over Oweh to begin the second half and not only did it spark the team but it sparked Oweh, too.
On a day he finished with 20 points to lead his team, Soares scored four of OU’s first six points out of the break, the first of the buckets creating an actual four-point possession.
Meanwhile, though Oweh had to wait to return to the floor, he finished with 16 points, a conference season high, 14 coming after the half.
Everybody’s got their own conventional wisdom, but the one I’ve been adhering to says the Sooners had to win at least two of their last five regular-season games to be certain of an NCAA tourney selection, an outcome demanding victories over OSU and Cincinnati, presuming losses at sixth-ranked Iowa State, to second-ranked Houston and at Texas, a squad that embarrassed OU by 15 points Jan. 23 inside Lloyd Noble Center.
Cincinnati visits Norman on March 5, contests against the Cyclones and Cougars, by then, in the rear view mirror.
Had McCollum’s Hail Mary not fallen, the Sooners still would have played an exquisite half, but there would be no reason to believe momentum might transfer forward, OU in horribly dire need of wins, not tremendous efforts.
Now, maybe?
It’s an odd thought.
It was a game the Sooners had to, had to, had to win, against a Bedlam opponent that had floundered until only its past two games, topping BYU at home before garnering its first conference road triumph at Cincinnati.
You talk about a coach on a hotter seat than Moser and it’s OSU’s Mike Boynton, whose best argument for hanging in Stillwater is probably an expensive buyout.
Why did OU wait until NOW to finally give its suffering fans something to cheer about, something to make it believe it really can play in this conference, and the next conference, at the direction of this coach?
“These guys keep bouncing back,” Moser said.
The also keep having to bounce back because they can’t seem to handle success.
Do we credit Moser, or maybe just McCollum, for saving the season, or do we indict them for having to in the first place?
Probably comes down to on an entirely different conventional wisdom.
A gauntlet of a league, any team’s lucky to hang on? Or, conference schmonference, the Sooners should never be in such straits to begin with?
Debate amongst yourselves.
Two things everybody can agree on?
OU claimed a classic.
For now, the Sooners live.
As the season has progressed, McCollum's range on the threes has diminished. He has been consistently short from long range. So as that final play unfolded and I see him trapped in the corner, defender in his face and time just about out, It's all over. That the shot went in has to be considered a fluke based on his stats. But it's also time that OU got a break. They've shot themselves in the foot so often that just staying out of their own way for one play was a marvel. I said last week that Moore and Soares carry this team. And they did once again. Why Soares doesn't get the starts over Oweh is beyond me. Oweh is a football player in tennis shoes, and he's selfish. Dribbling all over as he's seen McCollum and Uzan do, and getting his pocket picked repeatedly...just as he's seen Uzan and McCollum do. Way too much dribbling as a team. Godwin has shown flashes of offensive movement, but he's just weak and gets manhandled around the rim. I like the way Northweather has moved in. Of course, he's not a front line player at this point but maybe in the future. All in all, we escaped thru a miracle...and it's still time to be rid of Moser.