Porter Moser has made it clear that he’s willing to play anybody anywhere this season. That became especially apparent with announcements this week that Oklahoma will face off against three high-quality opponents to tip off the 2025-26 season in November.
The first test will come against Gonzaga on Nov. 8, Nebraska on Nov. 15 and Marquette on Nov. 28, all on neutral courts. It was also previously reported that the Sooners will play Bedlam rival Oklahoma State on Dec. 13 in Oklahoma City for the second straight season.
Sooners schedule Nebraska, Gonzaga, Marquette
On Monday, OU announced that the Sooners will play a former Big 12 rivals Nebraska Cornhuskers on Nov. 15 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, at Sanford Pentagon.
Oklahoma holds a 68-62 record over its Big 8 and Big 12 counterpart, and the two teams last met in 2022, with the Sooners beating Nebraska 69-56. Tipoff and TV schedules will come at a later date, but you can expect the intimate setting to be rocking with these two squads duking it out again on the hardwood. Oklahoma might have the better team on paper heading into the season, but Fred Hoiberg always has a formidable team for whichever team he coaches.
Oklahoma will have a challenging matchup on the first Saturday of the season when it travels up to Spokane, Washington, to take on the Zags. Although it is coined a neutral site, the game will definitely be a road atmosphere that the Sooners will have to overcome. The game will be played at Spokane Arena, just down the road from Gonzaga, and it’ll be matchups like this one that will benefit Oklahoma down the stretch during tough road environments in the SEC.
The two teams haven’t met much over the years, last playing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2021. The Zags took that contest 87-71 on the way to making the national championship game. Before that, Oklahoma last played the Bulldogs in Spokane Arena in the 2009-10 season when Jeff Capel was at the helm of Oklahoma basketball.
Gonzaga, like most teams, still has to fill out its roster with a couple more transfer portal additions, but the Sooners should expect to be meeting another top-15 or better team from Mark Few, and a game that should help their NCAA Tournament seeding come March if they can pull off the win.
Oklahoma will spend its Black Friday in Chicago when it plays Marquette at Credit 1 Union Arena, the home court of the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Much like the Gonzaga matchup a few weeks prior, the Sooners will be playing in a quasi-road game, but it’ll be a homecoming for Moser, the Chicago native.
Oklahoma doesn’t have a lengthy history with the Golden Eagles, but Shaka Smart’s teams have always been relentless on the defensive end of the court, and that won’t change this season. With the Marquette game added for Thanksgiving weekend, it almost signals that Oklahoma won’t be competing in an MTE this season, but these standalone games can tell a lot about a team leading up to conference play.
While Oklahoma has gotten off to hot starts in nonconference play the previous years, it has struggled in conference competition. However, a couple of wins against these top programs will go a long way toward seeing what this Moser-led team can do.
As it stands now, Oklahoma has been active in the transfer portal, and Moser has his most talented transfer class on paper heading into 2025. Oklahoma has brought in a pair of lengthy small forwards in Tae Davis (Notre Dame) and Derrion Reed (Alabama), and a couple of experienced and proven guards in Nigel Pack (Miami) and Xzayvier Brown (St. Joseph’s).
The Sooners’ November slate will be a good opening audition to see how these transfers can gel together.
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