Kicking and screaming, Porter Moser may have found something, but too late to matter

Only because Sooner coach now doing what he should have been doing all along has any hope been restored after six straight Big 12 Conference losses

Oklahoma coach Porter Moser calls in a play against Baylor during the first half on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Rod Aydelotte)

If you’re an Oklahoma basketball fan and industrious enough to track down ESPNU on your cable or streaming platform you must have seen it.

You must have seen the coolest, most fun thing from the Sooners’ 82-72 loss to the 14th-ranked Baylor men:

The joy on the face of 6-foot-4, 194-pound junior guard Joe Bamisile.

Bamisile averaged 16.3 points and five rebounds a year ago at George Washington. Two years before that he was a top-100 national prospect and top-15 at his shooting guard position coming out of Monocan High School in Richmond, Va.

He didn’t start in Waco, but played well, turning 18 minutes into 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting, seven rebounds and two assists.

Unless you give it to Grant Sherfield, who canned 5 of 11 and 4 of 8 from beyond the arc to finish with 15 and seven assists, Bamisile was the best Sooner on the floor and maybe the most electric, too.

He did not care about nor carry the weight of five straight conference losses OU brought into Ferrell Center, nor seem to have any awareness his coach might be on his last legs with the program, nor that the season’s been a colossal disappointment.

He just loved being on the floor and why not?

He’d not played at all in nine of OU’s previous 12 games. 

But the season a lost cause, Wednesday became the night Sooner coach Porter Moser decided to give Bamisile extended time in a competitive game for the first time since Dec. 10 at Arkansas.

And if Bamisile wasn’t the most electric Sooner, true freshman Otega Oweh was.