The talk and speculation is over, the NCAA Men’s Tournament field is now set, and postseason Oklahoma basketball will begin its March Madness run as the No. 2 Seed in the West Region.
The Sooners’ opening opponent will be No 15-seed California State University at Bakersfield (24-8), the champions of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. This will be a Friday afternoon game played in Oklahoma City.
Given that the Chesapeake Energy Arena is a 25-minute-drive up Interstate 35 from the Oklahoma Norman campus, the Sooners should have a huge advantage in games played in the first weekend of this year’s tournament.
The winner of the Oklahoma-Cal State-Bakersfield game will go on to play the winner of the Friday matchup between No. 7 Oregon State (19-12) and No. 10 Virginia Commonwealth (24-10)
That is a very favorable draw for the Sooners on the opening weekend, and they should be favored to advance to the round of 16, otherwise known as the Sweet 16, the following weekend.
Should Oklahoma post a couple of wins in its first two NCAA Tournament games it will travel to Anaheim, Calif., where the Sooners’ Sweet 16 opponent in the West Region would come from the bracket that includes No. 3 Texas A&M, a former Big 12 school, No. 6 Texas, a current Big 12 opponent and hated archrival, No. 11 University of Northern Iowa and No. 16 University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Looking at the matchup possibilities for the Sweet 16 round in the West Region, I see Buddy Hield and the Sooners going up against Southeast Conference champion Texas A&M. An Oklahoma victory in Game 3 of its 2016 Tournament run would advance the Sooners to the Elite Eight, one win away from their fifth-ever NCAA Final Four appearance.
OK, stay with me for a moment, let’s assume – and I am even a step beyond that – Oklahoma is still alive and kicking (and, of course, raining zeroing in from the perimeter) after getting by its first three opponents in the Big Dance, who would be their likely opponent in the West Region championship game?
The high-seeded teams on that side of the West bracket are top-seed Oregon, No. 4 Duke and familiar foe Baylor, the No. 5 seed, out of the Big 12. It wouldn’t be improbable that No. 8 Saint Joseph’s or No. 9 Cincinnati could emerge out of this group.
If the brackets hold true to form, which I can assure you they will not, especially with all the parity in college basketball this season, the West Region Elite Eight final would feature No. 1 Oregon, the Pac-12 champs, and Oklahoma.
An Oklahoma-Oregon matchup would be a difficult game to handicap – almost a pick’em game. So many different variables could swing a regional final between the top two seeds in the West either way.
The real question will become: Which Sooner team will we see if the Crimson and Cream are fortunate enough and good enough to get this far in the NCAA Championship – the one that we saw the first half of the season, or the one that struggled and had great difficulty closing out games the second half of the conference season?
One thing is certain when you reach this exciting stage of the season: Bad games are not an option. It’s win or go home.
This is when veteran teams that have been together a long time and been here before, like this group of Oklahoma Sooners, have a huge advantage. When you add the best player in college basketball to that mix, the possibilities are endless.
Let the madness begin!