It was an infuriating January for Oklahoma men's basketball fans, and Selection Sunday will likely be just as miserable despite a joyful March to this point, because January still matters and will haunt the Sooners.
After a late six-game win streak that halted with a loss to Arkansas in the quarterfinals of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament on Friday, the Sooners on Sunday will sweat it out as an NCAA Tournament bubble team for the third time in five seasons under head coach Porter Moser. Last year, OU just barely snuck in thanks to a late run, but this time, it was likely too little, too late no matter how spectacular the Sooners looked down the stretch.
OU projected to just miss NCAA Tournament after time on bubble
After the dust settled on Saturday night, ESPN's Joe Lunardi still had OU as his first team left out of the 68-team field and Texas as the last team in despite the Sooners beating the Longhorns in Austin just a week and a day before Selection Sunday. The rest of Lunardi's last four in included Missouri, Miami (OH) and SMU.
Most experts on Saturday agreed with Lunardi's most recent projection that the Sooners will likely just miss the cut after many believed a win over Arkansas would have been the difference in OU going dancing. If so, this would be the third time in five years with Moser in charge that OU was one of the first four teams left out of the tournament, which in a way is even more miserable than this season's nine-game losing streak and the annual letdowns once conference play tips off.
Before the Sooners rattled off six wins in a row with two blowouts in the SEC Tournament and won eight of their last 11 games, they were considered the worst team in the SEC in early February and were fighting to just stay above .500. In the end, OU eventually got to 19-15 overall and avenged four of its previous losses, but not all of the Sooners' sins will be forgiven on Sunday just because they eventually got on the right path.
None of the bracket experts predicting how things will unfold are on the selection committee that's actually making the decisions, though. And there's even a case for the Sooners to get in over most every other bubble team. It's not to say the Sooners shouldn't be in over those who will instead, but when there's a consensus this strong and no one notable has the Sooners going dancing, the writing is on the wall.