The No. 1-ranked Oklahoma softball squad travelled to Hawaii over the weekend to take part in the Rainbow Wahine Classic. The participant field included Big 12 foe Baylor, California, and Hawaii, which hosted and played on its home field. Unfortunately for the fans, the only way to see the action was on SoonerSports.TV, or to […]
OU will learn its postseason fate during the NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday show on CBS.
Following a win over Baylor and a one-point loss to Texas Tech, most considered the Oklahoma Sooners to be a viable candidate for one of the final at-large spots for the NCAA Tournament. However, some tough breaks in the other conference tournaments have many people thinking that OU’s valiant showing at the Big 12 Tournament might have been too little, too late.
Most notably, Richmond’s Sunday win over top-seeded Davidson in the A10 Tournament has people feeling a bit more pessimistic. Virginia Tech’s ACC Championship triumph, Texas A&M’s SEC run and Indiana’s upset of Illinois haven’t exactly helped matters either.
It’s been a while since Sooner fans have truly “sweated it” on this day. Lon Kruger’s Trae Young-led team entered the day in a complete spiral, but we knew they would get in whether they deserved it or not. Kelvin Sampson’s 2003-04 team made the NIT but wasn’t really THAT close to an NCAA bid. A season that comes to mind is Sampson’s 1998-99 campaign, which saw the Sooners sneak in as a 13-seed and make a run to the Sweet 16. Essentially, it’s been over two decades since the program has been in this position on this day.
It won’t surprise me if OU ends up being the first team left out, so one has to wonder what position this team would be in if the ball had just bounced the Sooners’ way in one of the team’s many close defeats. To put it lightly, there are an awful lot of “what-ifs” with this team and this season, but they’ve shown us what we can expect from Moser’s program from an effort and preparation standpoint.
No matter what happens today, I’m optimistic for the future.
The men’s Oklahoma basketball team didn’t win the Big 12 Tournament, but one of their own came out a big winner. Umoja Gibson, known by his teammates and coaches simply as “Mo,” was named to the Big 12 All-Tournament Team. Gibson scored 14 points in Oklahoma’s win over No. 2 seed Baylor and was the […]
What’s the difference between a one-point win and a one-point loss? Well, if you’re an Oklahoma basketball fan, it boils down to the difference in earning a spot with the big boys in the NCAA Tournament or being relegated to the Not Invited Tournament. Not that the Sooners wouldn’t gladly and graciously accept an invitation […]
The Oklahoma basketball men battled and battled and battled but fell oh-so-short of what would have been a monumental win. The Sooners (18-15) dropped a 56-55 heartbreaker to 14th-ranked Texas Tech (24-8) in a game that most experts believed would have guaranteed Oklahoma a spot in the forthcoming NCAA Tournament had the Sooners won. Both […]
A win would’ve locked up an NCAA Tournament spot, but Oklahoma will now have to wait for Selection Sunday to discover its postseason fate.
A win would’ve all but locked up a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but the Oklahoma Sooners came up just short, falling to the Texas Tech Red Raiders by a score of 56-55.
Having turned it over 11 times in the first half yet again, Oklahoma fittingly entered the intermission trailing by 11. A lot of teams would have folded in that situation when facing a team of Tech caliber, but this team has been nothing if not resilient for the entirety of Porter Moser’s first season, and they simply seized control of the game for the majority of the second half. It reached a point in which Tech almost looked helpless offensively, and when OU began limiting turnovers on the other end, you knew this would become a thriller.
Oklahoma would lead by a score of 47-44 with 7:25 remaining, but Tech would answer with a 6-0 run of its own to flip the deficit. From that point forward, it was a slugfest between two fatigued fighters. A few questionable calls down the stretch helped Tech secure a 56-54 advantage in the closing moments before Jacob Groves was sent to the line with a pair of free throws. The first one went down, but the second would have to be tipped out for an offensive rebound. It ended up in the hands of Umoja Gibson, who drove it to the basket before being tangled up as time expired.
Oklahoma entered the game right in the middle of the NCAA Tournament bubble, and very little went the Sooners’ way in the other tournaments. Texas A&M’s win over Auburn, Indiana’s win over Illinois and Virginia Tech’s win over North Carolina could indeed prove costly, and OU will certainly be sweating it on Selection Sunday. I think this team deserves a bid, and I think the NET ranking might end up carrying them into the Big Dance in the end, but I’d probably call it a coin flip at this point.
