Selection Sunday: Oklahoma's Bubble Bursts, Sooners Miss Third Straight NCAA Tournament
For the third straight year, Oklahoma will have to watch the NCAA Tournament from home.
Porter Moser’s Sooners were the victims of conference tournament chaos on Saturday as multiple bids were stolen, leaving OU on the outside of the 68-team field.
The NCAA Selection Committee ranked Oklahoma as the first team out, and the Big 12 received eight bids for the tournament.
“A very difficult process," NCAA Tournament Committee Chair Dr. Charles McClelland said during the Selection Show on Sunday. "... When you start talking about the selections process, this is the first time since I have been on the committee that we have had five bids that have been stolen. The last two years combined there’s only been three (bids stolen).
"... We did not finish our process of scrubbing (the stolen bids) until 2 a.m. this morning, so it is a very difficult process. One of the most difficult I’ve been in. And I talked to some of the staff that’s been in this room over 20 years and they said this probably the most difficult selection process that they’ve been a part of."
This is the second close call in Moser's tenure, as the Sooners were the second team left out of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
Oklahoma left Kansas City confident on Wednesday after TCU ended any hopes of a Big 12 Tournament run.
But March is never the time to rest easy when you’re living on the bubble.
NC State won five games in five days, upsetting North Carolina in the ACC Tournament title game to earn its way into the NCAA Tournament — a reality that seemed just a dream last week for the Wolf Pack.
Oregon’s unlikely run through the Pac-12 Tournament took another bid from a bubble hopeful, and New Mexico wrapped up another bid in the Mountain West Tournament that wasn’t projected headed into the week. FAU crashed out of the AAC Tournament, opening the door for another stolen bid as well, shrinking the bubble considerably.
In the end, the Sooners didn’t do enough in Big 12 play.
Though Moser’s team ended with a combined 16-0 record in Quad 2, 3 and 4 contests, OU ended a dreadful 4-12 in Quad 1 games.
The Sooner ended the season 20-12 overall.
Oklahoma blew a nine-point lead to Texas Tech over the closing 7 1/2 minutes at the Lloyd Noble Center on Jan. 27, a tough loss while the Sooners were still full strength. The defeat came before John Hugley IV’s injury and ahead of Rivaldo Soares ankle injury that he played out over the final month of the season. As a team, OU also missed nine free throws in the 85-84 defeat.
A tough closing stretch also took a toll.
Javian McCollum’s buzzer beater lifted Oklahoma past Oklahoma State in Stillwater, but OU lost four of its next five games.
The lone win in that stretch — a 74-71 overtime victory over Cincinnati — clinched OU’s first 20-game regular season since 2016, but the gritty win without McCollum wasn’t enough.
Hugley, McCollum and Soares all missed Oklahoma’s Big 12 Tournament contest in hopes that the trio would be ready to take the court in the NCAA Tournament, but now the Sooners must shift their focus to the NIT.
Regardless of how OU’s run through the NIT pans out, a crucial offseason is ahead for the program.
Every member of the roster except for Soares, Le’Tre Darthard and Maks Klanjscek is eligible to return as the Sooners head to the Southeastern Conference.
Moser has reformed his roster via the transfer portal every offseason he’s spent in Norman, but the result has been the same — failure to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
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