www.soonertimes.com

The Oklahoma Sooners Men's Basketball team plays TCU today in the 2 PM game of the Big 12 Tournament. The Sooners dropped their game to TCU in Ft. Worth early in the conference schedule by the score of 71-80. I heard last night on the Sports section of the news that Rivaldo Soares will not play for the Sooners today due to a bad ankle. If that is true, the Sooners face an uphill road today playing without Soares and Hugley IV.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the opening Big 12 Tourney game for the Sooners.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/3/11 ... -wednesday

The Big 12 conference contest will air on the Sooner Sports Radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Varsity Radio App) with Toby Rowland and Kevin Henry announcing and be broadcast by ESPN+ with Rich Hollenberg (PxP) and Chris Spatola (analyst) on the call.

It will be interesting to see if someone outside of the remaining 6 primary players, Godwin, Moore, Oweh, Uzan, McCollum and Darthard can step up to help the Sooners today. They wil need the help greatly if Soares and Hugley IV do not play.

Good luck to the Sooners today in their game against TCU.

Boomer Sooner.

The Sooners are actually down three primary players as Javian McCollum is also out with an aggravated shoulder injury along with Hugley IV and Soares.

Someone has to step up off the bench.

Good luck to the men.

Boomer Sooner!

Yep, the Sooners, shorthanded as they are, really miss those players. About 3/4 of the way through the game, TCU leads 57-42 and the Sooners are not helping themselves by committing lots of turnovers (14-10) and missing way too many free throws (8-16)!

It's an ugly game, can't see a possible Sooner win here, guys, sorry...

BTW, for those of you watching, you just KNEW that it was gonna be TCU's day when a TCU guy banked in a three-quarter court shot just before halftime to put the Frogs up by 15 at the break.

NIT, here we come.

The Oklahoma Sooner Men's Basketball Team was not able to defeat the TCU Horned Frogs on Wednesday afternoon without three primary players. But after being down by double digits for most of the game, the Sooners rallied in the final 5-ish minutes to whittle down the TCU lead and lost 77-70. Four of the five Sooner starters, Moore, Oweh, Uzan and Darthard all scored in double figures in the game. Moore and Oweh scored 16, Uzan scored 15 and Darthard scored 12. Moore pulled down 9 rebounds to lead the Sooners.

The loss drops the Sooners overall record to 20-12. As a result, the Sooners will now have to wait and see if they are selected for the NCAA Tourney on Sunday. If they do make the tourney, getting Soares and McCollum healthy is a huge need for the Sooners. They would play as early as Thursday next week, maybe a week really helps with with their injuries.

The Sooners have not played very well down the stretch as they have no lost 6 of their last 8 games and defeated only the Oklahoma State Cowboys. But their losses are all to what is considered 'locked in NCAA Tourney teams' except for maybe Texas. Before that stretch the Sooners were 18-6 though and they were fully healthy at that point.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the game with TCU yesterday.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/3/13 ... ansas-city

In other Big 12 action yesterday;
BYU defeated UCF 87-73. BYU plays Texas Tech today @ 11:30 PM.
Kansas State defeated Texas 78-70. K-State plays Iowa State today @ 6 PM today.
Cincinnati defeated Kansas 72-52. Kansas played minus 2 starters (MCCullar and Dickinson). Cincinnati plays Baylor today @ 8:30 PM today.
TCU plays Houston @ 2 PM today.

soonerindallas wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 9:08 pm NIT, here we come.

I don't think you need to be so pessimistic. Both Lunardi (ESPN) and Palm (CBS) still have us comfortably in the tournament as a 9 or10 seed. That gives us a pretty good buffer even if some non-tournament team wins their conference tournament to steal a bid.

gcruse7 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 9:34 am

soonerindallas wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 9:08 pm NIT, here we come.

I don't think you need to be so pessimistic. Both Lunardi (ESPN) and Palm (CBS) still have us comfortably in the tournament as a 9 or10 seed. That gives us a pretty good buffer even if some non-tournament team wins their conference tournament to steal a bid.

The only thing I can see keeping us out of the NCAA tournament is a lot of upsets in the conference tournaments, like Cincy beating Kansas. If Cincy wins the Big XII, they get the automatic bid and the selectors will give Kansas (and all the ranked teams they would have to beat) an at-large bid that may belong to OU. So we have to root against all the Cinderellas out there.

gcruse7 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 9:34 am

soonerindallas wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 9:08 pm NIT, here we come.

I don't think you need to be so pessimistic. Both Lunardi (ESPN) and Palm (CBS) still have us comfortably in the tournament as a 9 or10 seed. That gives us a pretty good buffer even if some non-tournament team wins their conference tournament to steal a bid.

If that is the case, then that would be great. However, with Cincy beating KU last night, I don't know what impact that will have. Cincy looked strong.

I guess the bottom line for me is that we just don't look like a tournament team. Hope we still get in and they prove me wrong.

soonerindallas wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 12:51 pm

gcruse7 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 9:34 am

soonerindallas wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 9:08 pm NIT, here we come.

I don't think you need to be so pessimistic. Both Lunardi (ESPN) and Palm (CBS) still have us comfortably in the tournament as a 9 or10 seed. That gives us a pretty good buffer even if some non-tournament team wins their conference tournament to steal a bid.

If that is the case, then that would be great. However, with Cincy beating KU last night, I don't know what impact that will have. Cincy looked strong.

I guess the bottom line for me is that we just don't look like a tournament team. Hope we still get in and they prove me wrong.

Pretty to look great when you have 3 key players out. That's tough in football, but in basketball it's disastrous.

It’s going to be very close as to whether we are still on the Dance Card. I could easily see our spot going to TCU or even KSt.

Raul wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2024 2:30 pm It’s going to be very close as to whether we are still on the Dance Card. I could easily see our spot going to TCU or even KSt.

I glanced over Palm's Braketology for 3/15 AM.

TCU is in the field as an #8 seed and we are a #9 seed. KSU is out of the tournament and all the variables that go into the bracketology are either equal or lean toward Oklahoma.

The only team that jumped out as a concern is Mississippi St. They are still playing and have to beat Auburn to win the SEC. Auburn is already seeded in the tournament while Miss St is a play-in game and they could bump us down to a play-in.

It’s odd. First 20-win regular season since Buddy, yet unpleasant to behold, IMO.

RussC wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 10:20 am It’s odd. First 20-win regular season since Buddy, yet unpleasant to behold, IMO.

I agree. The unpleasantry is there because the team digressed considerably as the season wore on. Tougher competition, of course, but definite digression with much of the conference showing improvement.

Lunardi now has OU as the “last team in”.

Quite disappointing after a 13-1 start and top-10 ranking.

Time for a change. Good coach, but not good enough.