This really isn’t anything new in Norman this sports season. After the football team lost to Ole Miss to drop to 6-2 the Fire Brent Venables fan group was on the sports talk shows with fire and brimstone in their calls to Jim Traber to fire the coach before the season ended. So what did the Sooners do…they stayed connected from within to win four straight to close out the regular season for a berth in the College Football Playoff.
Almost pshychotic edge rusher, Taylor Wein, helped coin the phrase…’Hard to Kill’ after the Sooners’ win at Tuscaloosa in November.
And that’s pretty much what Porter Moser’s once down-trodden Sooners have done since losing to Kentucky on the road in early February to fall to 1-9 SEC, and 11-12 overall. These Sooners appeared to be dead, as in done. Most of the fanbase gave up. Especially the students…which pained me greatly.
We never surrender…in basketball, football, hockey, or life. Remember?
We scratch, well crawl, we bleed.
The Sooners were one loss away from having the longest losing streak in Sooner mens basketball history.
Then something stunning occured, the Sooners shockingly won at nationally ranked Vanderbilt to end the streak. Then within in the Sooners’ final seven games of this regular season they beat Georgia, Auburn, LSU, Missouri, and Texas.
Porter Moser’s Sooners are now 17-14 heading into the SEC Tournament this coming Wednesday.
Before the win at Vanderbilt the Sooners were No. 85 in the all important NCAA Net Rankings. This Sunday, after the overtime win at Texas, the Sooners are all the way back up to No. 55 and are in the relevance conversation zone of Joe Lunardi’s Bracket. The Sooners have climbed from the 15th spot in the SEC to No. 11 and passed now No. 60 Missouri. That reversal in order with Missou might prove to be significant if the Sooners can win at the least two more games in the SEC Tournament.
To put the NCCA Net rankings in regional relevance…Tulsa is No. 46 and O State is No. 78.
TheSooners’ draw makes this narrow path to the Tournament still plausibile. The Sooners draw the worst team in the SEC in South Carolina on Wednesday night in Nashville. A win there would get the Sooners to 18-14. Next up would be Texas A&M. The Sooners have lost twice to the Aggies this season in two close games.
Do I think it’s conceivable OU could beat Texas A&M on a neutral floor riding the wave of a five game winning streak? I do. OU is very capable of winning this game.
That would put the Sooners at 19-14 and probably in the 40’s somewhere in the NCAA Net 44 range or so having played an excellent non-conference record as well as the SEC grind.
Arkansas would be next if the Sooners could get that far, and wouldn’t it be ironic for me if my Sooners then played Calapari’s Hogs after I played the Calipari presser on the blog in which he predicted this OU team could very well turn its season around after the Sooners’ tough late game loss in Norman.
Either way this goes…I’m proud of the team and Porter Moser for not throwing in the towel on this season. When you’re a Stage 4 guy… you just do not embrace that train of thought in anything. There is no surrender. There’s grace and mercy. There’s redemption. There’s faith. But no surrender until God lets you know.
I’m thrilled for these guys and Porter.
Two more wins first and then let’s maybe talk about Arkansas and those two young guards.
Mike J