OU basketball the First Team out of the NCAA Tournament
Just one crazy conference tournament result too many for OU basketball. The ultimate gut-punch as the Sooners were revealed to be the first team out of the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday.
OU, thought to be comfortable in the field of 68 heading into the week, finds itself on the worst case of outside looking in possible.
If you thought being team No. 70 two seasons ago was rough, try winning 20 games in this year’s version of the Big 12 and being told you’re No. 69.
Head coach Porter Moser had the talking points. OU didn’t have a bad loss. Now it had quite a few with 12 of them, but all of them were in Quad 1 games.
No head-scratching loss to a dismal team.
And what Moser really tried to hit home was the Sooners were 18-6 when full strength. OU was simply never full strength from mid-February through the rest of the season.
It started with a meniscus injury to John Hugley. Then it was an ankle injury to Rivaldo Soares. And finally, a shoulder injury down the stretch for Javian McCollum.
OU went from 18-6 to 20-12, going 2-6 during that injury stretch. Moser stressed after the loss to TCU on Wednesday that OU would be healthy for next week’s NCAA Tournament. Stressed it, by this weekend, those three would be able to return.
But it fell on deaf ears.
Saturday was just a rough day for bubble teams. One conference bid stealer after another. If North Carolina State or Oregon lose. Or if Florida Atlantic wins. You can play the game all you want. Instead, the chaos led to five bids being stolen.
Five.
OU went from being comfortably in to, yep, the first team out in the span of 24 hours.
It will be interesting to see where Moser and the Sooners go from here. Of course, we know it’s to the SEC. But the staff put so much time in putting together a solid roster.
Well, gonna have to do it again.
Instead of dancing, we are back to the Portal Moser era in Norman.
