Oklahoma Basketball: Predicting Final Two Weeks of Big 12 Race
By Chip Rouse
We’ve reached the time in the Oklahoma basketball season when it is all about standings and seedings.
What happens over the next two weeks and four games will determine how the Sooners will be slotted in the Big 12 Tournament brackets and, beyond that, Oklahoma’s path and position in the NCAA Tournament field.
The fourth-ranked Sooners have finished their round-robin season series with Kansas, Iowa State and West Virginia, all ranked in the top 20 nationally. On paper, that is a good thing as far as Oklahoma’s victory chances in its remaining regular-season schedule, but on the con side of the issue, the Sooners have absolutely no control over their razor-thin chances of catching Kansas for even a share of the Big 12 crown.
It would appear that the best Lon Kruger’s team can do at this late stage of the 2015-16 campaign is to nail down the two spot, and the Sooners’ opportunity to accomplish that goal is very much within their reach.
Three of Oklahoma’s five losses this season have come against the Jayhawks, Cyclones and Mountaineers, but it is hard to fault a team going 3-3 against teams that have spent the entire season in the top 15 in college basketball’s national pecking order. Nevertheless, OU finds itself with a 9-5 record in college basketball’s strongest conference and in a three-way tie for second place, two games back of Kansas.
OU has finished second in the Big 12 in each of the past two seasons, last year sharing the runner-up spot with Iowa State, and if it takes care of business over the remaining two weeks, the two spot should be there for the taking again in 2016.
Sooner superstar Buddy Hield chose to forgo the NBA and come back for his senior season with the hope that he could help lead his team to something no other Big 12 team has been able to accomplish for 11 straight seasons: unseat the Kansas Jayhawks as the indisputable kings of Big 12 basketball. That goal appears to be unattainable, but who can quarrel with being the runner-up for each of the last three seasons and three of Hield’s four sensational seasons at Oklahoma.
The Sooners have two home games and two contests on the road to finish out the 2015-16 regular season. That starts Wednesday night with a Bedlam rematch at home with in-state rival Oklahoma State.
The Cowboys are really struggling this season. Given their 3-11 record in Big 12 play, you would never have predicted that one of those conference wins was over Kansas, and that in the first game with Oklahoma, the Sooners escaped with just a two-point win in Stillwater. Nevertheless, barring something of a miracle, Oklahoma should be able to prevail over the Pokes in Norman.
What appears to be the biggest remaining challenge on the Oklahoma schedule will come this weekend when Kruger’s guys travel south across the Red River to pay a visit to archrival Texas, which came extremely close to upsetting the Sooners two weeks ago in Norman. Were it not for a buzzer-beating game-winning three-point dagger from – who else? – Buddy Hield, Oklahoma could easily have lost that game, which would have meant four consecutive losses before getting back on the winning ways over the past weekend at West Virginia.
This will be a difficult road test for the Sooners. The Longhorns have been playing extremely well under their new head coach Shaka Smart, and I’m not sure you can read much into their collapse over the weekend in game the Horns lost by 14 points at home to Baylor. Texas trailed by almost 30 points in that game midway through the second half.
The game before the Baylor debacle, however, the Longhorns had an especially strong showing in defeating West Virginia at home and sweeping the season series with the Mountaineers. Such is life in the Big 12 this season. Baylor is the only Big 12 team to beat the Longhorns in Austin this season.
Non-coincidentally, Texas was the only Big 12 team to have beaten West Virginia in Morgantown this season before Oklahoma did it on Saturday.
The Sooners aren’t out of the woods after Texas, either. Surging Baylor, currently in a tie with Oklahoma and West Virginia for second place in the league, comes to Norman a week from Tuesday for OU’s final home game of the season. Oklahoma handled the Bears fairly handily in Waco, but Baylor has been playing much better basketball lately.
OU closes out the regular season on the road against TCU.
Looking at the teams the Sooners are fighting with for the runner-up spot in the Big 12, Baylor still has games remaining with Kansas and West Virginia, in addition to the game at OU. West Virginia hosts Iowa State and a red-hot Texas Tech team, which came within four points of beating the Mountaineers earlier in Lubbock, before they close out the regular season in what could be a pivotal game in the conference standings for both teams.
Iowa State and Texas also are in a position to catch and pass the Sooners in the standings, but the Cyclones still have West Virginia and Kansas on the road, and Texas must still face Kansas (albeit at home in Austin) and Kansas State and Oklahoma State on the road – no easy task, just ask the Jayhawks.
I see the Sooners going no worse than 1-3 down the homestretch, and with a win at Texas, which is very possible, a table-clearing 4-0. One of those three or four Oklahoma wins I’m giving the Crimson and Cream is at home over Baylor, and I believe the Bears will drop at least one more of their remaining four games.
Similarly, I see West Virginia losing at least one if not two of its final four. One loss (most likely at Baylor), would possibly leave the Mountaineers tied with the Sooners for second place, but OU owns the tiebreaker (a sweep of the season series).
And as far as Texas is concerned, Oklahoma can settle that scenario with a win in Austin.
So. bottom line: I see the Sooners ending the 2015-16 regular season with no worse than a 12-6 record, equal to that of a year ago, and with the No. 2 seed entering the Big 12 postseason conference tournament. And recognizing the extreme parity in the Big 12 this season, from that point, anything is possible.
Get ready for a wild, wooly and totally unpredictable conference tournament. Oklahoma’s potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament will likely be determined by the outcome of that four-day tourney.