Oklahoma men's basketball closes out the regular season this week and Year 1 in the SEC facing two former Big 12 foes.
No. 15 Missouri (21-8, 10-6) pays a visit to Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday, and the Sooners will finish out the regular season at Texas on Saturday.
If the season ended today, Oklahoma (17-12, 4-12) would be seeded 14th in next week's SEC Men's Basketball Tournament and would go up against No. 11 Arkansas in the late game on March 12.
Of course, things could certainly change between now and then, and that could be either good or bad for the Sooners depending on the outcome of the two games this week.
Missouri will be Oklahoma's ninth ranked opponent in the last 11 games, all within the monster league that is the SEC with seven teams ranked this week in the Associated Press Top 25.
Wednesday's game with be the 214th all-time between OU and Mizzou and the second this season. Missouri won the game earlier this season in Columbia, 82-58, holding the Sooners to a season-low 31% shooting and just 23% from 3-point range.
Oklahoma leads the all-time series 115-98, and the Sooners are 65-22 when the two teams play in Norman.
Family bragging rights will be on the line in Wednesday's game. Missouri coach Dennis Gates' younger brother, Armon, is an assistant on Porter Moser's Oklahoma staff.
This week's games are critically important to Oklahoma's chances of making the NCAA Tournament. ESPN's Joe Lunardi has the Sooners projected as the first team to be left out of the NCAA Tournament -- ironically, the exact same position they were in when the bracket was filled out for last year's tournament entering the final week of the regular season.
The Missouri game will be on SEC Network+. The announcers will be Chad McKee (play-by-play) and Bryndon Manzer (analysis).
What fans need to know
Oklahoma
- OU's Jeremiah Fears and Cooper Flagg of Duke are the only two freshmen in the country this season to average 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and 1.5 steals per game. Fears is averaging 20 points over his last four games.
- Fairfield transfer Brycen Goodine averages 50% (38 of 76) behind the 3-point line. He would lead the SEC in that category if he had enough makes (40) to qualify.
- Oklahoma, No. 1 Auburn and Kentucky are the only teams in SEC play this season to rank in the top six in the SEC in field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage and free-throw percentage. The Sooners are shooting 45.7% from the field (6th), 36.5 from 3-point range (5th) and 76.9 from the free-throw line (2nd). OU will need to shoot well in all three categories to defeat high-scoring Mizzou.
- The Sooners have shot 50% or better in six of their eight SEC home games. They are 3-3 in those contests.
Missouri
- Missouri is 3-5 in SEC road games and has lost its last two on the road and three of the last four. The Tigers' last game was a 97-93 loss at Vanderbilt, a team Oklahoma beat 97-67 in early February.
- The Tigers rank fourth in the SEC and seventh nationally, averaging 84.6 points a game and with four starters averaging at least 10 points a game: Caleb Grill (14.3), Mark Mitchell (13.9), Tamar Bates (13.3) and Anthony Robinson II (9.7). This is Mizzou's highest-scoring offense since the 1989-90 season.
- Missouri leads the SEC in 3-point percentage, shooting 37% as a team with three starters averaging over 40% from long range. This could be an important matchup with Oklahoma ranking 18th nationally in 3-point percentage defense, holding opponents to just 30% from deep.
- Defensively, Missouri ranks fifth in the country with 9.9 steals per game.
Prediction
Both teams have plenty to play for in this matchup. Oklahoma critically needs a win to keep its faint hopes alive to make the NCAA Tournament. Mizzou is already a lock to make the NCAA Tournament, but a win over the Sooners on Wednesday would clinch a first-round bye in next week's SEC Men's Basketball Tournament. OU is coming off back-to-back heartbreaking losses in games it led with under 30 seconds to go.
Hard to have much faith in this Sooner group, given the results of the past couple of months, but I believe they might have enough hunger left to pull off the upset in the home finale. Oklahoma finally pulls out a close one at the end.