Oklahoma basketball: Sooners are new No. 9 team in AP Top 25

Jan 23, 2021; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard De'Vion Harmon (11) and guard Austin Reaves (12) celebrate after a score against the Kansas Jayhawks during the second half at Lloyd Noble Center. Oklahoma won 75-68. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 23, 2021; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners guard De'Vion Harmon (11) and guard Austin Reaves (12) celebrate after a score against the Kansas Jayhawks during the second half at Lloyd Noble Center. Oklahoma won 75-68. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports

Oklahoma basketball made a g-i-a-n-t leap in this week’s national rankings, all the way into the top-10 at No. 9.

The Sooners (11-4, 6-3) played six teams ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 during January, the first team to do that since 1974 and one of only three teams to have played that many top-10 teams in the same month in more than half a century.

Three of those six ranked teams OU faced in January were ranked No. 9 at the time the game was played. Now the Sooners are the country’s No. 9 team, a jump of an almost unheard of 15 spots from No. 24 just a week before.

In just two weeks’ time, Oklahoma has gone from unranked to the nation’s ninth-ranked team. The reason for the colossal advancement: In the Sooners last three games, they have beaten No. 9 Kansas, No. 5 Texas, and this past Saturday, they upset No. 9 Alabama, one of the hottest teams in college basketball, without two starters, including Austin Reaves, OU’s leading scorer. Reaves also leads the Sooners in rebounds and assists, so his absence is a major blow.

Without Reaves and Alondes Williams, the Sooners were missing almost 23 points a game from their offense against a top-10 Alabama team that was at full strength.

Oklahoma is one of six Big 12 teams that are ranked this week in the AP poll, which is voted on by 65 media representatives. A seventh Big 12 school, Oklahoma State, sits just outside the top 25 at what would be 26th. The Sooners are one of three Big 12 teams in the AP Top 10, along with No. 2 Baylor and No. 6 Texas.

According to the ESPN College Basketball Power Index, Oklahoma is the fourth best team in the Big 12 this season, behind Baylor, Texas and Texas Tech. The Sooners were picked to finish sixth in the conference standings in the 2020-21 Preseason Poll of the league coaches.

ESPN describes the BPI as a “measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of (a team’s) performance going forward” the remainder of the season.

The Sooners will face their seventh ranked team in the last 30 days when they travel to Lubbock, Texas, to take on No. 13 Texas Tech (12-5, 4-4). The Red Raiders won a close game, 69-67, earlier this season in Norman.

Oklahoma has not won in Lubbock since 2015 and, if they are to do so Monday night, it will have to be without Reaves and Williams, who are both out for a second straight game because of COVID-19 protocols.

Next man up!