OU Handles No. 14 Florida, 74-67

What a perfect basketball evening at Lloyd Noble Arena as Porter Moser’s rapidly improving Sooners led wire to wire defeating the previously unbeaten Floridia Gators to improve to 7-1 on the season.

Coupled with OU’s road win at UCF on Saturday this Sooner team has made some significant strides since losing 73-70 against Utah State in the finals of the Myrtle Beach Classic.

OU’s starting five of Jordan Goldwire, Moj Gibson, EJ Harkless, Jalen Hill, and Tanner Groves are melding into a very solid unit.

My top five coming off the bench right now would be CJ Nolan, Ethan Chargois, Bijaun Cortez, Jacob Groves , and Alston Mason.

With the high energy style of defense the Sooners play it will be critical for the Sooners to be able to play ten to eleven players once we get to Big 12 conference play.

Next up for OU is Butler next Wednesday in the Big12-Big East Challenge. This should be another nice challenge for the rapidly melding Sooners. When you watch these guys play it’s hard to believe they didn’t know each other several months ago.

It was Lon Kruger Night and the crowd was maginificent inside Lloyd Noble. The student section was standing room only and raccous as a student section should be. A great basketball atmosphere.

Both Caleb Williams and Joe C were there—so there was no way in hell there was going to be a football presser to introduce the new OU head football coach on this special day for Lon Kruger and Porter Moser.

You should watch this video just to hear Coach Moser explain how Joe C recruited him this past spring. It might prove insightful as to what’s going on right now with the OU search for its next football coach.

I was thinking about what I wrote this morning in relation to what Lincoln Riley’s legacy position at OU would be if the Roy Manning story has legs. But you know what…it doesn’t seem like anybody minus Jim Traber really cares that this coach just basically quit on his team this season. And even more off the charts is the fact Brian Kelly quit on a team which could very well have made the Final Four if he’d stayed with his team. Nobody really seems to care….which is very sad. nothing beyond the money seems to matter.

Day by day we’re losing sight of why we even play sports. It can’t just be about the money. At some point the money in and of itself holds no intrinsic value.

So I guess I need to rephrase where Lincoln Riley’s OU legacy will fall. I’ll put it this way… he’ll go back to being right there with Chuck Fairbanks on my OU Football Pantheon of Football Coaches…as far as on the field accomplishments, but probably become the most hated sports figure in contemporary Oklahoma sports history to go along with Kevin Durant.

I don’t hate anyone. Hating is a waste of time. But there are parallels between these two that’s for certain.

Both in a real sense both made the correct decisions on their own futures, it’s just neither took the time to thank those who helped them get to the next stages in their careers.

I mean I have to think…never in the history of USC football did they go out and hire some assistant from East Carolina who came from some hell hole called Muleshoe, Texas. Colin Cowherd might otherwise want reconsider how it is Lincoln Riley ever came upon USC’s radar screen.

I”m fine he’s gone for the selfish reason as a Sooner fan his style of coaching isn’t a match as to what it takes to win in the SEC minus perhaps what LSU did in 2019. But even that LSU team could actually tackle and block some the last few weeks of the season.

How sad Lincoln Riley didn’t take the right steps with Joe C and Bob Stoops to make his exit a classy one. To thank those who mentored him and made him a better coach.

This will all work out for OU football, but people really need to start appreciating why it is we compete in the first place and the journey it entails.

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