Sooners get second chance to save season in surprising postseason tournament

To borrow from the literary genius of the legendary Mark Twain: Rumors that the 2025-26 Oklahoma basketball season is over are greatly exaggerated.

With the NCAA Tournament and NIT about to reach dramatic conclusions and the Oklahoma women having been eliminated from March Madness last weekend, the Sooner men -- no foolin' -- return to the court on Wednesday, April 1 after a 17-day absence to take on the Colorado Buffaloes in the quarterfinal round of the College Basketball Crown in Las Vegas.

OU's opening-round game with the Buffaloes will tip off at 7 p.m. CT and be televised on FS1. Tim Brando, Jim Jackson and Allison Williams will be on the call.

The Sooners and Buffaloes are not strangers to one another. The two teams have met on the hardwood 132 times, mostly as long-term members of the Big Eight and Big 12 conferences. Oklahoma owns an 88-48 record in the all-time series, which dates back to 1938-39. OU hasn't squared off against Colorado, however, since the 2010-11 season, the Buffaloes' final season in the Big 12. Since 1981-82, two seasons into the Billy Tubbs coaching era, the Sooners have a 46-7 record against Colorado.

Oklahoma plays Colorado in College Basketball Crown with roster advantage

Oklahoma (19-15) will be at nearly full strength, including all five starters, for the Wednesday night tournament matchup against Colorado (17-15), now back as a member of the Big 12. The Buffaloes, however, will be without three of their top four scorers, all of whom have announced they are entering the Transfer Portal once it officially opens.

The Sooners averaged 82.7 points this season and have scored at least 85 points in 16 of their 34 games. Colorado averaged 80.0 points a game, but with a depleted roster against OU, including the loss of leading scorer Isaiah Johnson (16.9 per game), the Buffaloes will have to find scoring production from elsewhere on the roster.

After suffering through a crushing nine-game losing streak in February, which put a serious scar on Oklahoma's season, as well as its NCAA Tournament chances, the Sooners finished the season winning six of their last seven games. OU outshot all seven opponents during that stretch, and held each of the final eight teams it faced under 50% field-goal shooting.

The Sooners' late season surge also included trailing for a total of just 40:54 out of 235 total minutes over the final seven games of the season.

If Oklahoma wins its opening round game against Colorado at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the Sooners will play the winner of Baylor vs. Minnesota in the semifinals on Saturday. The semifinals and the championship game on Sunday will be played at T-Mobile Arena.

The Oklahoma season seemingly came to a disappointing and derisive end on Selection Sunday. The Sooners were the first team left out of the tournament field of 68 teams. What's more, if you're an Oklahoma basketball fan, this was the third time in the past four years the Sooners were first in line at the door in the wait line when the final invitation was extended.

There was further disappointment among the fan base when Oklahoma's name also did not appear among the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) teams when that bracket was announced later that same Sunday night. At that point, it appeared that the Sooners had declined an NIT invitation and a likely No. 1 overall seed for the second time in the last three years.

Less than 24 hours after suffering the disappointment of missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in head coach Porter Moser's five seasons at Oklahoma, the Sooners accepted an invitation to play in the second annual College Basketball Crown, which Moser subsequently explained offered OU a better option than the NIT alternative.

Sixteen teams competed in the inaugural year of the tournament, with Nebraska capturing the championship. Some experts have said that participating in The Crown and winning the championship proved to be a catalyst for the Cornhuskers' highly successful 28-7 record and second-place Big Ten finish this season.

Plus, The Crown does something the NIT doesn't: The Crown pays the players. In The Crown, the players get the prize money, not the schools. The prize pool is a $500,000 NIL purse and a guaranteed $300,000 to the winning team.

Pretty easy to understand why Oklahoma opted out of the NIT in favor of competing for the first time in The Crown.

In addition to Colorado, two other Big 12 teams (Baylor and West Virginia) are part of the eight-team tournament field. Minnesota, Stanford, Creighton and Rutgers round out the field.

Prediction

Colorado definitely will be undermanned against the Sooners in their opening-round matchup. There was a fairly wide gap between the two teams, however, even at full strength, based on the final NET rankings. OU was No. 48 and Colorado was No. 76. Oklahoma is an 8.5-point favorite and should cover and move on to the semifinals on Saturday.

Oklahoma 79, Colorado 67