Stormin in Norman
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Oklahoma basketball: Sooner men’s hoops battling to avoid an historic low

By Chip Rouse

Feb 11, 2023; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Kansas Jayhawks forward K.J. Adams Jr. (24) works to keep the ball away from Oklahoma Sooners guard Grant Sherfield (25), Oguard Milos Uzan (12), and forward Jalen Hill (1) during the second half at Lloyd Noble Center. Kansas won 78-55. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 11, 2023; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Kansas Jayhawks forward K.J. Adams Jr. (24) works to keep the ball away from Oklahoma Sooners guard Grant Sherfield (25), Oguard Milos Uzan (12), and forward Jalen Hill (1) during the second half at Lloyd Noble Center. Kansas won 78-55. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports /
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Before a much-needed home win over Kansas State on Tuesday night, the men’s Oklahoma basketball program had endured one of the longest conference win droughts in recent memory.

Seven consecutive loses to Big 12 opponents and staring straight ahead at six remaining regular-season games, five of which were against teams ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams.

Not a rosy outlook for a team struggling mightily to find wins in a conference that far and away is the best in college basketball this season.

The precipitous decline of the men’s Oklahoma basketball program this season, but particularly over the past month, is beyond troubling and something Sooner fans haven’t witnessed in quite some time.

The OU men won two of their first five conference games before beginning a seven-game losing skid that dropped their conference record to 2-10. The Sooners picked up their third Big 12 win on Tuesday night.

Head coach Porter Moser knows this team is good enough to beat every remaining team on its schedule. But he also knows it requires the Sooners to play their best basketball to do so, and that is something they have been unable to do on a consistent basis.

“(We’ve been) searching and grinding to find consistency,” the OU head coach said during his weekly press conference on Monday. “We’ve got to do better when things aren’t going our way. and not let it snowball on us.”

When the Sooners are at their best — which Moser defines as good possessions, tight defense and being strong with the ball (limiting turnovers) — fans have seen what they are capable of. OU beat the current No. 1 team in the nation, Alabama, by 25 points when the Crimson Tide were ranked No. 2, and on Tuesday the Sooners laid a 14-point beatdown on No. 12 Kansas State.

Despite the difficult gauntlet that lies ahead, the Oklahoma players are confident they can pick up a few more wins, avoid a last-place finish and one of the worst conference finishes in half a century. The Sooners have two home games remaining with Texas Tech and TCU but three extremely tough games on the road at Texas, at Iowa State and at Kansas State. OU is just 1-6 this season (1-5 in the Big 12) in true road games.

Oklahoma is currently tied with Texas Tech at the bottom of the Big 12 standings, both with a 3-10 record. One of the Sooners’ remaining games is a home date with the Red Raiders. One of OU’s three wins and the Sooners’ only true road win this season was at Texas Tech.

Oklahoma’s worst conference finish in the 27-year history of the Big 12 was in 2009-10, the year after Blake Griffin left for the NBA, when the Sooners, coached by Jeff Capel, finished 4-12 and tied with Iowa State for 11th place.

For the last time Oklahoma won as few as three conference games and finished in last place in the league standings, you have to go back to 1968-69 under head coach John MacLeod, when the Sooners were 3-11 in conference action. Since then, the Sooners have won a few as four conference games in a season just twice. One of those was the 2009-10 season, the other was Billy Tubbs first season on the job in 1980-81. The Sooners finished seventh that season in the Big Eight with a 4-12 record.

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