OU men not ranked in preseason top 25 polls, but will be playing many of those teams
By Chip Rouse
With eight new transfers and three freshmen to the Oklahoma men's basketball roster for the 2024-25 season, the Sooners will be tipping off the new campaign with another full roster overhaul and as members of a new conference, the SEC.
Head coach Porter Moser, starting his fourth season as Oklahoma head coach, and the Sooners are hoping to play well enough to return to the NCAA Tournament and March Madness for the first time in four years. The road won't be easy, however, as the SEC appears to be rising to a level of competitive depth and national notoriety that has been the dominion of the Big 12 in recent years.
The Sooners are coming off a 20-12 season in 2023-24 and a tie for ninth place in the 14-team Big 12. Despite being just 8-10 in conference play, OU was the first team left out of the NCAA Tournament last season, which left a bitter taste in the mouth of the two returning starters, forward Jalon Moore and center/forward Sam Godwin and made those two, especially, even hungrier for the coming season.
Oklahoma is a cautionary tale, though, as the Sooners enter their first season of SEC basketball. Coming from the conference considered the best in college basketball, it might be reasonable to expect that OU would be in better position to contend and compete in the upper level of the SEC than was the case in the Big 12. Roster stability has been the Sooners biggest problem under Moser, and it's the same old song again this season with 11 newcomers to the roster.
The Sooners did not receive a big vote of confidence in the SEC Preseason Media Poll. Oklahoma was picked to finish 15th out of the 16 SEC schools in the vote earlier this month of the media who cover SEC basketball. Only Vanderbilt was picked below the Sooners.
Given this low expectation of the 2024-25 edition of OU men's basketball, it is not at all surprising that the Sooners not only are not ranked but did not receive even one vote in either the Associated Press preseason poll or the Coaches Poll. In fact, the expectations are so low on a national scale that 13 SEC teams and 14 teams out of the Big 12 are ranked ahead of the Sooners in the CBS Top 100 entering the new college basketball stadium.
The Oklahoma men may not be one of the top 25 teams entering the 2024-24 season, which tips off for the Sooners on Nov. 4 against Lindenwood at Lloyd Noble Center, but the conference schedule, much like their football brethren, is loaded with ranked teams.
Nine of the SEC teams on the Oklahoma schedule are ranked in the preseason top 25, and the Sooners will play two of those teams twice (No. 13 Texas A&M and No. 15 Texas). Five of the games against the other seven ranked SEC teams (No. 2 Alabama, No. 11 Alabama, No. 16 Arkansas, No. 21 Florida and No. 24 Ole Miss) are true road games.
It appears the Sooner men are going to face a welcome to the SEC similar to what the OU football warriors are encountering in their inaugural season in the conference. Fasten your seat belts, Sooner fans, it's likely to be another bumpy ride.