Oklahoma basketball: Sooners earn No. 3 seed in NCAA early top 16
By Chip Rouse
The men’s Oklahoma basketball team’s accomplishments this season are getting lots of respect from the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
If the season ended today, the Sooners would sit on the No. 3 line as the No. 12 overall seed. That represents a monumental rise for a team that began January outside of practically everyone’s top-25 radar — everyone, that is, except for Lon Kruger’s team itself.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee on Sunday revealed an early bracket preview of the top 16 teams as things stand currently, a month away from the start of March Madness.
Oklahoma played arguably the most difficult January schedule of any team in the country. The Sooners played six games against teams ranked in the top 10 and won four of them, including three consecutively, joining just two other teams in NCAA history to win back-to-back-to-back games against teams ranked in the top 10.
The Sooners began February as the 9th-ranked team in the Associated Press Top 25, advancing 15 spots, from 24th the week before, after defeating then 9th-ranked Alabama. OU is No. 12 this week, but continues to play at a high level.
ESPN “Bracketology” expert Joe Lunardi has been rewarding the Sooners’ January success, as well. OU has gone from “first four out” to No. 11, No. 9, No. 6, and Lunardi’s latest NCAA Tournament projections have Oklahoma on the No. 5 line.
Oklahoma isn’t the only team receiving a lot of love in the early NCAA March Madness Bracket Preview. Four other Big 12 teams have been given a bracket spot among the top 16 teams in the early projection by the tournament selection committee. Baylor is a No. 1 seed (the No. 2 overall seed), West Virginia (No. 9 overall) and OU are seeded on the No. 3 line and Texas and Texas Tech occupy two of the four No. 4 seeds. No. 14 and 15 overall, respectively.
If things were to remain as they are for another month, a No. 3 seed would be the Sooners’ highest NCAA Tournament seed since the 2016 tournament, when Oklahoma, with Player of the Year Buddy Hield, was a No. 2 seed and advanced to the Final Four.
Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan and Ohio State are sitting on the No. 1 line in the early view of the selection committee
And you have to believe that Kansas and Oklahoma State are also likely to receive NCAA Tournament bids, giving the Big 12 as many as seven of the 10 Big 12 teams participating in March Madness.
A lot of basketball remains to be played, though, and all of this is subject to change, but it clearly represents a positive picture for the quality of Big 12 basketball, and for sure an Oklahoma team that was picked to finish sixth in the conference this season in the annual preseason poll of the league coaches.