Oklahoma Basketball Can Still Escape the Big 12 Basement
By Chip Rouse
The Sooners will not be playing beyond next week this college basketball season, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t sufficient reason to continue playing hard or that Oklahoma basketball has nothing to play for.
After finishing third in the conference and making it all the way to the Final Four a year ago – and the only Big 12 team to do so, I might add – the Sooners have been mired in or one step away from the bottom of the conference for virtually all of the past two months, or when league play commenced.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though, and it won’t if Oklahoma can hold home court serve against TCU on Saturday and Texas loses one of its remaining two games.
If the Big 12 regular season ended today, Oklahoma, with a 4-13 conference record, would be seeded 10th in next week’s Big 12 Tournament. That, however, does not take into account, the results in Tuesday night game between Texas and Texas Tech in Lubbock.
Texas (10-19, 4-12) won the earlier game against Texas Tech this season, a 62-58 victory in Austin. But the stage shifts to Lubbock on Wednesday night, and a victory by the Red Raiders would create a last-place tie between OU and the Longhorns. Should there be no change in that standing after Saturday, the Sooners would earn the No. 9 seed in the conference tournament ahead of No. 10 Texas.
What that would mean is Oklahoma would play the No. 8 seed, probably Texas Tech, next Wednesday night in Kansas City, with the winner moving on to face the Big 12 No. 2 seed, which at the moment would be Iowa State.
If the season would have ended after Monday night, however, OU would be seeded 10th and would play No. 7 Kansas State, a team the Sooners beat by 30 points this past weekend. The problem with that scenario, though, is that the game would be played only 100 miles from the K-State campus, which would be a much friendlier environment for the Wildcats than it was last Saturday in Norman.
Even though Oklahoma put a giant scare in Kansas, the new No. 1-ranked team this week, on Monday night, the Jayhawks caught fire late and rallied to defeat the Sooners by 10 points. That loss temporarily leaves Oklahoma in sole possession of the Big 12 cellar, depending on the outcome of the Wednesday night contest between the Red Raiders and Longhorns.
OU is back home against TCU on Saturday to close out the regular-season schedule. In the first game with the Horned Frogs, at TCU, the Sooners led the entire game until just four minutes remained in the game. OU ended up losing the game by three points, 60-57.
If the Sooners are able to get conference win number five on Saturday, Texas would need to win both of its final two games (at Texas Tech and at home against Baylor) to avoid the No. 10 seed in the Big 12 Tournament.
There is a very big difference between being a nine seed and a ten seed in next week’s conference tournament. The winner of the 8/9 team moves on to face the No. 2 seed in the quarterfinal round (Iowa State, Baylor or West Virginia). The winner of the 7/10 game gets to play top-seed Kansas the following afternoon in what will be virtually a home game for the Jayhawks in Kansas City.
So despite a terribly frustrating and disappointing 2016-17 season, the Sooners definitely still something to play for and an added incentive to finish off the home schedule and Senior Day with a meaningful victory.
There have been a lot of things working against Sooner men’s basketball this season, not the least of which has been the fact that OU has been in virtually every game they’ve played but haven’t been able to close out teams when it has held the lead with under 10 minutes or less to go.
Of Oklahoma’s 19 losses this season, 16 have been by 11 or fewer points. The Sooners have also played the most difficult schedule in the country, according to the ESPN College Basketball Power Index.
Oklahoma has played nine games this season against teams currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. The Sooners have shown that they can hang with some of the top teams in the land. Now they have learn how to finish off what they’ve started.