Oklahoma men's basketball is on a free fall seemingly without a safety net.
As bad as things have become for this Sooners' team, the worst is probably yet to come. OU's final five regular-season games includes four ranked opponents.
Barring a minor miracle over the final five regular-season games, what is now a 3-10 record in Oklahoma's first season in the SEC is likely to be 3-15 at season's end.
There is no way coach Porter Moser can survive this. The 56-year-old might have seemed like the ideal hire at the time, replacing veteran coach Lon Kruger following the latter's retirement after the 2021 season, but there has been virtually no growth or change in the program over the four years Moser has been at the helm.
The second half of this season has served as a giant wake-up call that Sooner men's basketball is going nowhere fast and is not good enough to compete in a league as tough as the SEC.
Moser is not totally responsible for all that has gone wrong with the OU men's program -- after all he can't personally make shots, grab rebounds and execute plays -- but he is fully accountable for the collective efforts and performance of the team and, most of all, the results.
Every Sooner fan was understandably excited about how things started out this season -- taking down 13 straight nonconference opponents before heading into league play -- but at the same time cautiously optimistic, having seen how this played out several times previously.
Last season, with essentially an all-new cast -- as has been the case every season under Moser -- the Sooners won 13 of their first 14 games, going 12-2 in nonconference games. Once the competitive level ramped up in conference play, however, the wins became far less frequent and Oklahoma finished out 8-10 in the Big 12.
In Moser's first season as the Sooners' head coach, in 2021-22, his team ran off 10 wins in its first dozen games and went 3-0 to begin Big 12 play. After starting out 13-2, the Sooners went 6-14 the rest of the way to finish 19-16 overall.
This is a disturbing pattern that sadly has become the identity of Oklahoma basketball under Moser, and as the curtain gets ready to come down on another college basketball season and attention shifts notably to conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament field, you can see the mounting frustration and despair in Moser's facial expression and comments in his postgame press conferences.
Moser's body language in leaving the court after the Sooners' stunning loss in the closing half-minute to LSU on Saturday spoke volumes. "Head bowed with a sullen expression," was the way one local sports writer described the scene, "Moser never even paused to look up on his way to the south tunnel toward the Sooners' locker room."
Moser was considered one of the rising stars in the college coaching ranks when OU athletic director Joe Castiglione convinced him to come to Oklahoma. In his last four seasons at Loyola of Chicago, Moser had twice led the Ramblers to the NCAA Tournament, advancing all the way to the Final Four in 2018 and to the Sweet 16 in 2021.
Oklahoma has failed to make the NCAA Tournament in any of Moser's three previous seasons as the Sooners' head coach, and they are an extreme long shot to do so this season.
Since Billy Tubbs became head coach in 1980-81, the Sooners have had five different men's basketball coaches. Only Moser has missed out on the NCAA Tournament more than two years in a row.
Although Moser's overall record at Oklahoma is on the plus side of .500 (70-54), his record in conference games (23-48, .348) is the worst of any Sooner basketball coach who has coached four or more seasons at Oklahoma.
Since arriving at Oklahoma four seasons ago, Moser has strongly encouraged greater student support and attendance at games. Basketball at OU has and never will be the fan favorite that football or softball are, but it certainly is more deserving than 70% of capacity. The 2024-25 season has been among the lowest in men's basketball in recent memory.
Oklahoma is averaging only 6,700 fans this season at home basketball games in a facility that can hold almost 11,000 at full capacity. The head coach is not the person responsible for putting bodies in the seats, but he does have ultimate responsibility for the product on the arena floor, and for the past four years, it hasn't been good enough to attract fan interest and support.
Moser may be a great person with a sharp basketball mind and the reputation of being a program builder and culture nurturer who has experienced success at programs lower than Oklahoma, but none of that has taken hold for Moser at this career stop.
Four years is more than enough time to get the right pieces in place and establish a winning program that continues to get better and sustains that success for a full season. That isn't happening under Porter Moser. Time to cut bait and move forward with a new and hopefully better fit at the helm.