Just a day before new Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny decided Porter Moser was still the right guy to lead OU's men's basketball program if he just had the right resources, Arkansas head coach John Calipari, who has led six Final Four teams, had already confirmed Denny made the correct decision without even knowing it.
Calipari's Razorbacks on Friday beat Moser's Sooners 82-79 in the quarterfinals of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament before going on to win the whole thing two days later. The Sooners' loss ended a six-game winning streak and likely left them one win short of getting into the NCAA Tournament after a miraculous March turnaround that gave OU any sort of hope and ultimately saved Moser's job.
John Calipari unintentionally backs Roger Denny's Porter Moser decision
"This may be your best job, ever, of coaching," Calipari told Moser after the game.
Before getting to Oklahoma, Moser led Loyola Chicago to the Final Four in 2018, but Calipari is even more impressed with Moser's 2025-26 OU team that's 19-15 and projected to be the first team left out of the NCAA Tournament.
The last time Calipari coached against Moser in January, the Sooners were in the midst of a nine-game losing streak. However, once the Sooners finally ended their skid with a road upset of then-No. 15 Vanderbilt, which met Arkansas in the SEC Tournament final, they won eight of their last 11 games to all of a sudden find themselves on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
"Folks, when you're winning, it's a different thing," Calipari said. "When you're struggling, that's real coaching. How do you keep 'em up? How do you get 'em involved? How do you keep 'em believing when you're struggling? He did. The other thing is, how do you get individual players to be their best-ever when your team is struggling? He figured that out."
Despite OU losing to Arkansas and projected to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in five years under Moser, news broke on Saturday that Denny met with Moser and planned to bring him back for next season. Denny also put the Sooners' failures on the administration, not Moser, for not providing sufficient resources, particularly for NIL, for Moser to succeed.
"It’s on Coach Moser to make sure that our team’s performance continues to meet and exceed our resources for the program. He’s done that and I’m confident he will continue to," Denny said in a statement on X. "But an underdog spirit will only take us so far. It’s my job to ensure that our resources match our expectations. We haven’t held up our end of that bargain. From NIL to staffing and beyond, we’re going to fix that."
Denny had reportedly already made up his mind on Moser's future even before the Sooners won two games in the SEC Tournament and became serious threats to make the NCAA Tournament, so Calipari's comments didn't have an influence, but, coming from a successful outsider, those words should definitely be reassurance, not only for Denny, but also OU fans that the right decision was made for OU's men's basketball program.
“He is one of the good guys in our profession,” Calipari said. “You all know his career, what he's done. I say when you have a guy like him, then administration's got to do their thing and put around him. I always say coaches win games. Administrations win championships. I've said that for as long as I've coached.
“We can do our thing, but they are going to win a championship because they choose to. They choose to invest in it. They choose to do all the things that a championship team has to have and needs to have.
“He's a championship coach.”