Oklahoma men crack top 25 this week at No. 21 in AP, Coaches Poll

Oklahoma men's basketball, picked to finish 15th out of 16 teams in the SEC Preseason Media Poll, cracked the top 25 in this week's Associated Press and Coaches Poll rankings at No. 21 in both major polls.

Both Oklahoma basketball teams are ranked this week. The Lady Sooners (6-1) are No. 11 in the AP poll. That's down three spots from the previous week.

The Sooners (7-0) began the season with double-digit wins over four mid-major schools (Lindenwood, Northwestern State, Stetson and East Texas A&M) and this past week defeated Providence 79-77, No. 24 Arizona 82-77 and Louisville 69-64 to capture the championship in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament in the Bahamas.

Oklahoma was not ranked last week or any time this season, and did not even receive any votes last week in either of the two weekly polls. The Sooners have not been ranked on the men's side since the first week of February a year ago when they were ranked No. 25 in the AP Poll. A year ago, the OU men were ranked as high as No. 7 after starting off the season 10-0.

The Battle 4 Atlantis championship was the third-straight early season, multi-team event title for Oklahoma under head coach Porter Moser, who is in his fourth season.

Eight SEC teams are ranked in the top 25 this week, including five ranked ahead of the Sooners (Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Florida). Texas A&M and Ole Miss rank behind Oklahoma. There's still a lot of game left to play this season, but early on it appears the Sooners are a better team than a number of the experts projected.

The Sooners are hoping to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance under Moser. Oklahoma's last NCAA Tournament appearance was in Lon Kruger's final season in 2020-21.

Oklahoma is back in action this week, hosting Georgia Tech at Lloyd Noble Center on Tuesday as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge, and again on Saturday against Alcorn State. Saturday's game will be played as McCasland Field House on campus, where the Sooners played basketball from 1928 to 1975.