Just a great college baskketball game last night in Nashville where about 20,000 Big Blue Fans made this is a hostile road game for the OU Sooners. But I will write this…I thought for the most part the zebras were fair. This wasn’t at all like getting jobbed in Kansas City by Bill Self’s personal Jayhawk Blue favorite son game official….Dougie Sermon. What a tool that one is.
The Sooners lead several times in the first half, but trailed the rest of the game except for a couple of seconds prior to former Sooner Otega Oweh’s game winner from the left baseline with a second left.
Porter Moser’s Sooners were galliant. They trailed by 12 with three minutes left in the game and almost pulled off a miracle on the road. There was nothing neutral about this game site.
A heartbreaker for certain, but one of those games where as a player, coach, or fan you walk to the locker room with your head held high. This is clearly one of those Vincent Thomas Lombardi moments when you didn’t win, but you emptied the tank and will never feel any remorse for the collective effort.
When you compete at the highest level…this happens. Everbody in this league minus perhaps LSU and South Carolina are really good. I think OU has done enough since those thirty disastrous seconds in the LSU game to be in the NCAA Tournament come Selection Sunday.
OU not only went through the SEC gauntlet…they beat Providence, Louisville, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and former DI program Oklahoma State which as recently in the early 2000s was coached by legend and friend Coach Eddie Sutton.
OU won the tournament in the Bahamas, then beat Michigan in Charlotte in the Jumpman Invitational. None of these wins were at home. This team very much should be prepared for playing venues away from home.
I hate to write this, but I must. A good deal of my Sooner fans bailed after the LSU loss. I did not because my life has been full of sports. Winning and losing. Sometimes teams have to lose some together… before they learn to win togther. I’m ashamed of the turnout which I witnessed for the Missouri game which was Senior’s Night. It was maybe 5,000 or 6,000 who showed up.
But for me…I’m extremely proud of these players. And for me as a Stage 4 walking cancer survivor… I understand very well every basketball season at this point could in theory be my last.
This is emotional for me. It’s the shape of my heart in a way.
So…we’ll see how it goes on Selection Sunday.
Good luck, guys.
BOOMER!
MJ