This time, Sooners belong
We can talk about Moser later, because this Oklahoma team deserves to dance
Two years ago, though most bracketologists had the Oklahoma men dancing, they did not reach the NCAA tournament.
The first team out, it was as though then third-year Sooner coach Porter Moser had been betrayed. For what was he to tell his players?
“I feel such hurt for the young guys who put so much into it, they don’t have answers …” Moser said. “Why were they left out when every single day the response I’m getting from people in the media, other coaches, ‘We had you in.’”
Except that it was obvious why they didn’t get in. They didn’t get in because they didn’t deserve to be in. They weren’t good enough and they proved it all the time.
They fell like a lead balloon, which is just what Keith Moon said would happen when Jimmy Page put a new band together after leaving The Yardbirds, accidentally naming Led Zeppelin.
Moon, like Moser, was wrong.
They were 2-5 over their last seven conference games and then really proved they didn’t belong when the Big 12 tournament arrived, losing their first game to TCU after falling behind 45-31 at the half.
Play like a team that wants to be done and you ought to be.
This time?
If OU was really as close as everybody decided it was — the seventh team out — when the SEC tourney began on Wednesday, it should totally be in now.
It’s a no-brainer.
First they beat South Carolina 86-74 Wednesday night in a game that didn’t feel nearly so close while so many others in front of them lost.
Red hot early, the Gamecocks led by 13 points 7:03 before the half, only to come back to earth as OU found its bearings and tied it 42-42 by the half.
At the first media timeout of the second half, OU led 54-47. By the last media timeout, with 3:48 remaining, OU led 81-64.
Once it was a game, then it wasn’t.
But South Carolina is not a good team. It won four conference games in 18 tries.
So, Thursday night, OU took on Texas A&M, the Aggies the tournament’s No. 6 seed to OU’s No. 11, the Aggies also carrying a 43 NET rating and a prognosticated No. 6 seed into the NCAA tournament.
The Sooners, easily the better team, beat the Aggies 83-63. They never trailed and led 38-14 with 5:26 left in the first half. Though A&M pushed a 22-point halftime deficit to 12 with 14:43 remaining, OU spent the rest of the game recovering all but a bucket of its intermission edge.
Nigel Pack hit his first three 3-point attempts and finished with 20 points, Xzayvier Brown added 16, Derrion Reid 15 and 10 rebounds, Tae Davis 14, nine rebounds and four assists and Mo Wague was just fine, too, finishing with seven points, eight rebounds and three blocks.
In the middle of it all, play-by-play man Tom Hart announced, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, were OU to defeat A&M by at least 10 points, it would vault into first-team-out distinction.
The Sooners won by 20.
They’d be in right now had Miami (Ohio) remained undefeated through the Mid-American Conference tournament, but the RedHawks dropped to 31-1 in a quarterfinal loss to UMass on Thursday, meaning the MAC will now receive two bids instead of one.
Still, there’s what Moser said after the game: “Who’s playing the best right now?,” by which metric OU might leapfrog a whole gaggle of teams come Selection Sunday. And there’s how OU compares on that metric specifically to some of the teams in front of it, a few of which should be behind it.
While OU is the first team out, claims Lunardi, in front of Auburn, Indiana and New Mexico State, the last four in are Virginia Commonwealth, Missouri, SMU and Texas.
Check them out.
• VCU: Still in the Atlantic 10 tournament, there’s no argument against the Rams (24-7, 15-3). They belong in the field, as does conference-mate Saint Louis, a projected No. 10 seed.
• Missouri: The Tigers’ (20-12, 10-8) SEC record is gaudy in the nation’s best conference, but Missouri has hit the skids. Not only did OU beat it 80-64 on March 3, but the Tigers have now made it four losses in six games, also losing to Arkansas at home and, Thursday in Nashville, to Kentucky at the SEC tournament.
• SMU: Despite being 11th in the ACC standings, the Mustangs (20-13, 8-10) have somehow become the eighth and final team from their conference predicted into the NCAA draw. They’ve managed it despite losing their last four regular-season games to Cal, Stanford, Miami and Florida State, before topping Syracuse and falling to Louisville in the conference tournament. SMU feels like a reach.
• Texas: The Longhorns (18-14, 9-9) have been trying to play their way out for a while. They’ve lost five of six, including an overtime loss to OU last Saturday in Austin and an embarrassing 76-66 loss to No. 14-seed Ole Miss (14-19, 4-14) on Wednesday at the SEC tournament. Texas feels like OU two years ago. It doesn’t deserve it.
So, yeah, as made clear again and again, OU still needs a new coach.
As a message to the fans, basketball donors and an homage to a standard it will forfeit should it not hire one, it must move on from Moser.
But that doesn’t mean the magic Moser and this band of Sooners have found since ending a nine-game losing streak at then-15th-ranked Vanderbilt doesn’t deserve to take it dancing.
“One stretch doesn’t define us,” Reid said.
It dang near did.
But it shouldn’t now.
OU is playing too well.
I gave up on them a while back because it looked like the same ‘ol same ‘ol Porter team. Idk what changed, less hero ball, better defense, coaching insight maybe. Whatever, Porter has himself a team and they’ve looked great the last few games. If we get in they could go pretty deep, which could make for some interesting drama for Denny.