The Oklahoma Sooners seemed dead in January, but apparently not, and now they're proof that what doesn't kill a team makes it stronger.
The 11-seed Sooners late Wednesday night avenged an earlier loss to No. 14 South Carolina with a dominant 86-74 win in the first round of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament. The win advanced the Sooners to play No. 6 Texas A&M in the second round at 8:30 p.m. CT Thursday for the third time this year, and they're now just two wins away from what ESPN's Joe Lunardi says could put OU in "a realistic conversation" of sneaking back into the NCAA Tournament.
And the Sooners are in this situation after suffering a nine-game losing streak in January and entering March Madness with a losing conference record at 7-11.
Sooners get revenge over South Carolina in SEC Tournament to keep NCAA Tournament hopes alive
"We knew we had a path, man," OU guard Nijel Pack said during his postgame interview with SEC Network. "Obviously early in the season things weren't going our way, but we had a different route that we had to take. Sometimes it's suffer, and it's tough to go through hard times, but I'm glad it shaped us into the team that we are today."
Pack dropped a game-high 24 points thanks to five makes from beyond the arc in the win over South Carolina. He was one of four Sooners to score double-digits Wednesday night.
Something clicked for Pack and the rest of Porter Moser's squad after ending their losing skid with a road upset of then-No. 15 Vanderbilt. Since the losing streak halted, the Sooners are now 7-2 and riding a five-game winning streak after beating South Carolina. Only Florida and Alabama, the top two seeds in the SEC Tournament, have been better than OU in the conference during that time.
Although still a long shot, the recent surge has OU as a bubble team to make the NCAA Tournament. Lunardi told SEC Network before the game that the Sooners need to win three games in the SEC Tournament for serious consideration to go dancing.
The SEC Network crew continued to point out throughout the game that no one in the country wants to take on the Sooners right now with their season on the line, and although that OU team in January had no chance, this version very well could accomplish what needs to be done.
"I mean, if you look back three months ago at the team we were, the team we are now, it looks like totally different players are on this team," Pack said. "We're playing with a different confidence, playing with a different swag and we're playing super hard."