The men's college basketball season ended Monday night with the crowning of the 2025 national champions, Florida Gators.
Oklahoma was not be part of that ceremony, but at least the Sooners were one of the 68 teams that began the March Madness journey three weeks ago. And that was a bigger deal this year because OU had not been a participant in the NCAA Tournament for the last three seasons.
Attention for the Sooners has shifted to the offseason.
Sooners rebuilding roster through transfer portal
For a while late this season, it appeared Porter Moser's time as head coach of the Sooners would be coming to an involuntary end. OU's dramatic turnaround at season's end that moved the Sooners off the bubble and into the tournament field likely saved Moser's job for at least another season.
But then there were a couple of weeks during which it appeared the Oklahoma coaching situation might be flipping the other way, and Moser could be leaving Norman on his own volition.
It appears Moser is in place for a fifth Oklahoma season, but as has been the case throughout his Sooner coaching tenure, he is having to remake nearly his entire roster. Gone are the days when you recruit a player who stays around for two or three or, god forbid, a full four years at the same school that recruited him. NIL and the transfer portal have changed that forever.
Unfortunately, major roster turnover is not really anything new within the Oklahoma basketball program over the last several years. The Sooners lost eight of 15 players from the 2023-24 roster and nine of 15 from the 2022-23 roster.
Of the 17 players listed on the Oklahoma men's roster this season, only five have announced they will be back for another season. The Sooners will lose 11 players off the roster -- including leading scorers Jeremiah Fears, who is declaring for the NBA Draft after a sensational freshman season, and Jalon Moore -- because they are either out of eligibility or have elected to take their game elsewhere.
The five returning players include no starters from 2024-25 and three (guards Jeff Nwankwo and Jadon Jones and forward Kuol Atak) who saw not a single minute of action this season.
Freshman guard Dayton Forsythe and center Mohamed Wague averaged around 12 minutes and four points per game, and are the only ones out of the five returnees who saw any playing time. Forsythe did have a 25-point game this season, along with three other double-digit scoring performances, and Wague produced a couple of 12-point games
The Sooners also have three freshman recruits coming in for the 2025-26 campaign in small forward Alec Blair, the No. 59 player in the 2025 class, according to 247Sports; 6-foot-10 center Kai Rogers out of Atlanta; and Andreas Holst, a 6-foot-11 center from Denmark. Other than that, however, the OU squad will again include a majority of new faces from the transfer portal.
Moser is more than familiar with the tall task ahead. He's faced it in each of his four seasons at Oklahoma, and if it's any consolation, he's not alone among head coaches in the new world of pay-for-play and free agency that has revolutionized college athletics as we once knew it.
After OU's season ended, Moser even admitted OU needs to win the recruiting battles in March and April.
The Sooner head coach went on to say he thinks the Sooners are on the right track, especially if they can continue to land top players like Fears. Of course, landing those kind of players is much easier said than done, especially when it becomes a monetary bidding war. And if you are lucky enough to reel one in, how long they will stay around is a whole another issue.
On Monday, the Sooners received their first two transfer portal additions for next season, gaining the commitment of former Notre Dame forward Tae Davis, and former Kansas State star and Miami (FL) transfer Nijel Pack.
The 6-foot-9 Davis enjoyed a career season for the Fighting Irish this season, averaging 15.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and nearly two assists per game. He will have one season of eligibility remaining.
Davis helps fill a much-needed role for Oklahoma, which has lacked a prominent presence in the interior from players with size who can both score and defend. He is rated as the No. 37 overall player in the transfer portal and the No, 14 forward on the market in 247Sports' transfer portal rankings.
Pack averaged 13.9 points in just nine games this season before suffering a season-ending injury. Pack played his first two seasons at Kansas State, where he averaged 15.3 points and was named an All-Big 12 First-Team selection in 2021-22.
That's a good start, but there's clearly a lot more work to do if the Sooners are going to be competitive, let alone contenders, in their second season of SEC basketball. We'll be keeping a close eye on all of this. April and May are heavy upon us, after all.