With a coach who has never led the program to the NCAA Tournament (and likely never will), the Oklahoma Sooners reached a new low with Porter Moser as their leader.
The Sooners extended a four-game losing streak with an 82-79 loss to the LSU Tigers on Saturday at Lloyd Noble Center. OU led by six points at halftime, by as many as 13 in the second half and had a five-point advantage with 21 seconds left before fumbling away what should have been one of its easiest conference wins of the season.
Although the Sooners started Saturday on a three-game losing streak, LSU was actually in even worse shape than OU. The Tigers had one conference win at 1-11 in SEC play. They were on a seven-game losing streak and hadn't won a game during the month of February.
But a trip to Norman cured all for the Tigers. LSU's losing streak is no more and the Tigers head back to Baton Rouge above .500 at 13-12 with double the SEC wins.
It was a game the Sooners should have won, not just going in as an 8.5-point favorites, but even during the final 20 seconds.
With OU up 79-74, LSU's Cam Carter made a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left to cut the Tigers' deficit to two points. Carter was also fouled on the shot, so he went to the free throw line and added one more.
After the free throw, the Sooners had possession for five seconds before Carter had the ball in his hands again. He made a layup and was again fouled for another made free throw to give LSU an 81-79 lead with eight seconds left.
The Sooners then got one more chance to tie it up, but freshman Jeremiah Fears missed a layup he had to force.
And it wasn't just one loss to a bad team that got OU to this valley. The Sooners lost to three ranked teams in a row before Saturday, but they were absolute blowouts with an average margin of defeat of 23.3 points.
These Sooners don't belong on the same court as good teams, and now can't even beat the bad ones either.
NCAA Tournament projections won't be updated until Monday at the earliest, but the loss to lowly LSU popped the Sooners' bubble. OU proved Saturday that it's not a team deserving of getting to dance.
And Moser reminded he's not the coach to get the Sooners back to the NCAA Tournament. In Moser's fourth season guiding the Sooners, it will be their fourth time missing the NCAA Tournament. Those are not goals for OU, but expectations.
As the Sooners expect to get to the NCAA Tournament, Moser instead has them with the bottom dwellers of the conference.