The opportunity for the Oklahoma men's basketball team to do enough to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee is now down to a bare minimum.
The Sooners (17-11, 4-11) have three games remaining in the regular season and only one of those games is against an opponent currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. All three opponents, however, are expected to be dancing in March.
Oklahoma missed a golden opportunity to solidify its NCAA Tournament chances in a one-point home loss to No. 17 Kentucky on Wednesday. The Sooners led the game with under 30 seconds to go but weren't able to finish it off.
Now the focus turns to Ole Miss (19-9, 8-7) and a Saturday afternoon matchup in Oxford, Mississippi, with a lot at stake for both teams. The Rebels recently fell out of the top 25 after being ranked among the nation's top teams for most of the season.
For the Sooners, the stakes are fairly obvious. They likely need one or two more wins to secure an NCAA Tournament spot. Ole Miss is looking to snap a three-game losing streak and earn a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament. Right now, the Rebels are perilously holding on to the eighth and last first-round bye in the upcoming conference championship tournament.
Oklahoma and Ole Miss have met five times previously on the hardwood, with the Sooners holding a 3-2 advantage. The last meeting was in 2022 in the ESPN Events Invitational in Orlando, Florida. The Sooners won that game 59-55. Ole Miss won the only game played in Oxford.
The game at Ole Miss on Saturday will be televised on ESPN2 beginning at 1 p.m. CT. with John Schriffen and Richard Hendrix announcing.
What fans need to know
Oklahoma
- Ole Miss represents just the second unranked opponent the Sooners have faced in the last 10 games. This is a bit misleading, however, because until this week, the Rebels have been one of nine SEC teams that have been ranked in the AP Top 25 all season. Just a few weeks ago, the Rebels were ranked 16th nationally with a 15-3 record.
- Senior Jalon Moore, who leads OU in scoring with 17.1 per game, has scored 20 or more points 12 times this season, including a team-high 20 in the 83-82 loss to Kentucky on Wednesday.
- Jeremiah Fears, the SEC Freshman of the Week this week, is averaging 22.3 points, six rebounds and six assists a game in his last three games. He is 8 of 21 from 3-point range over the past four games. That represents a major improvement. The young point guard was just 7 of 42 in 3-balls in the 13 games before that.
- Oklahoma has been outscored in fastbreak points just six times in 28 games this season, but it has happened five times in the past seven games.
Ole Miss
- One of the teams Ole Miss lost two in its current three-game skid was Mississippi State, an 81-71 loss at home that began the streak. The Rebels also lost to MSU in overtime on the road in January. The potential relevance of this is that Oklahoma defeated Mississippi State 93-87 a week ago, one of the Sooners' four conference wins this season.
- The Rebels' leading scorer, Sean Pedulla, is from Edmond, Oklahoma, and attended Memorial High School. The senior guard, who transferred to Ole Miss from Virginia Tech, is averaging 14.8 points a game, 16th-best in the SEC, and leads the Rebels in assists (3.8 per game) and steals (1.9).
- All five Ole Miss starters average in double figures in scoring and four of the five have scored over 1,000 points in their career.
- The Rebels rank second nationally for the fewest turnovers per game (8.9) and are fourth-best in NCAA Division-I men's basketball with a turnover margin of plus-5.6. Ole Miss forces an average of 14.5 turnovers per game, which could be a major concern for turnover-prone Oklahoma.
Prediction
The opening line for this game favors Ole Miss (-7.5), recognizing that the Rebels are playing at home and a looking to end a three-game losing streak. Ole Miss is 11-3 playing at home at SJB Pavilion. Oklahoma, on the other hand, is just 1-6 in road games this season.
Ole Miss holds home court and wins 74-67.