Oklahoma basketball men 69th team in 68-team NCAA Tournament field
By Chip Rouse
The men's Oklahoma basketball team will not be going to the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive season.
Despite achieving 20 wins for the first time since the 2018-19 season and competing in the strongest college basketball conference, the Sooners fell victim to an injury-plagued poor end-of-season finish and four conference champions who would not have received at-large NCAA Tournament bids.
That fatal combination ended up costing the OU men a spot in the tournament as the team ranked No. 69 and the first team left out of the 68-team field.
Oklahoma lost four of its last five games, which is not a trend that the NCAA Basketball Tournament selection committee views favorably, along with an unprecedented number of upsets during conference championship week by teams that had to win their conference tournaments to make it into the NCAA Tournament, resulted in the Sooners being pushed out of the tournament field.
As of Sunday morning, ESPN Bracketology expert Joe Lunardi had projected the Sooners as one of the last four teams to receive an at-large NCAA Tournament berth and having to win a play-in game on Tuesday or Wednesday to make it into one for the four 16-team regional brackets.
Oklahoma misses out again on the NCAA Tournament, but the Sooners will have the opportunity to play on in March as an automatic qualifier to the NIT (National Invitation Tournament) as one of the two highest-ranked non-NCAA Tournament teams. The NIT field and brackets will be announced later on Sunday/