Porter Moser's time to go is now
Running out the clock does nobody any good and Joe Castiglione ought to know it
Let him go.
Let Porter Moser go now.
Save all of us, him included, from our continued and shared misery.
The Sooners don’t play again until Saturday, so drop the axe today, hand the reins to assistant Ryan Humphrey and see what happens.
It’s a roll of the dice but that’s better odds than what you’ve got now for a program nobody’s excited about, nobody wants to see play, nobody in their right mind wants to continue supporting with their checkbook and, most of all, nobody believes will get better.
I don’t know how the buyout works.
It was supposed to be $8.36 million last April, according to USA Today’s list of Division I men’s hoops coaches’ salaries and buyouts and it’s bound to be less now given Moser’s been collecting on his $3.2 million salary since. Nor do I know what it might be reduced to come this April, or if Moser might take less than owed to escape the ugliness of a firing.
I don’t know the dough.
But I know everything else, and if you’ve been paying attention, so do you.
I know firing a coach — even a coach that’s been to only one NCAA tournament in four seasons and whose four-year-plus conference mark is 27-49 — can be a double whammy.
It can be that because not only must you dispatch and replace a coach, but you might lose your next recruiting class, too, or players on your current roster who might follow a fired coach elsewhere.
Yet, that’s not a factor at OU, where remaking the roster is an annual event.
It’s the beauty of Moser’s roster-building, roster-developing and roster-maintaining ineptitude. Because he’s never developed and never maintained, the only downside to losing him is just that:
Losing him.
Addition by subtraction.
It occurs that we’re deep into this and we’ve not yet mentioned OU’s 96-79 Tuesday night Lloyd Noble Center loss to 19th-ranked Florida (12-5, 3-1 SEC).
It was more of the same, with a twist.
Rather than waiting to die late, the Sooners died early, falling behind double digits, 25-14, 8:13 before the half only to keep on falling and trail 46-24 at half.
Of course, it was a must win.
OU made it one by going 0-2 on the SEC road last week against unranked Mississippi State and Texas A&M. The Aggies may have been better than advertised but the Bulldogs weren’t and the Sooners fell 72-53 anyway.
Placed in a position to respond or fold, OU (11-6, 1-3) took the easy way out.
It’s disgusting.
It’s embarrassing.
It would be more of the same, too, only it’s worse because this time the losses are more lopsided and they’re arriving faster.
To watch the Sooners is to view a talented roster that ought to be able to compete in a difficult league.
Once again, they can’t.
Rudderless, leaderless and without direction, they yet again can’t.
Or they can for a half, but not two, and everybody’s long past being surprised.
Want to hear a crazy stat story?
OU began conference play after turning the ball over 9.38 times per game against non-conference foes, fewer than every other SEC team against non-conference foes.
In conference, the Sooners are turning the ball over 12.7 times per game, 10th in the SEC. Ole Miss — which OU beat 86-70 on Jan. 3 — leads the SEC at just 8.85 turnovers per conference game.
But you know who turns it over even less? Whoever’s playing OU, that’s who. Since conference play began, Sooner opponents are turning the ball over just 7.75 times per game.
Everybody says it’s Moser’s most athletic team and it looks like it, but it gets fewer turnovers than every other conference squad?
It can’t compete.
Or it won’t.
Not to traffic in fear, but there’s a scenario in which athletic department drama above Moser might conspire to keep him in place for a sixth season.
OU athletic director Joe Castiglione has announced this academic year to be his last, yet nobody seems to know what that means in terms of his actual departure.
Could it be June?
Could he stick around for another Women’s College World Series?
If so, or if sooner, who picks OU’s next hoops coach if Moser’s sent packing, Castiglione or his successor.
Which brings us back to the beginning.
Let Moser go now.
There’s no reason to believe his team would be any worse without him.
Bring in Humphrey, a former Sooner who understands where the program’s been, and who knows, something good might happen.
Whether it does or not, if the players play hard for him, fans, dying for something new and different, will begin to come back just to see it.
Concessions get a bump, at least.
It would mean OU not waiting until March or April to find out who’s interested in the job and who’s not, another positive.
If you’re hoping to bring Kellen Sampson — Kelvin’s son and top assistant at Houston — back to Norman, wouldn’t it be better to know if there’s interest, or none, pronto?
When you really think about it, Moser’s imminent firing would be good for everybody but him and at this point it might be good for him, too.
Like, what are we doing here?
For the program, the fans, the university and the ghost of Billy Tubbs, whose name, alongside Wayman Tisdale’s, should adorn the court, it’s time OU, which means Castiglione, take the plunge.
For the greater good.
To end everybody’s suffering.
Sooner would have been better, but here we are.
However distasteful, Joe C. must do his job.
Moser has earned his fate.