The Oklahoma basketball team is on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but a win against Georgia on Wednesday in the SEC Tournament certainly helped the cause. The Sooners only won six conference games this season, but the SEC is on the verge of getting a record number of teams into the tournament. After the 81-75 win over the Bulldogs, Oklahoma is now 20-12, and head coach Porter Moser is confident that the Sooners will be dancing.
Unless the Oklahoma basketball team wins another game or two in the SEC Tournament, it’s definitely not a guarantee that they make the NCAA Tournament. They are on the bubble right now, but Porter Moser doesn’t seem worried.
“I thought we had a great case regardless,” Moser said Wednesday, according to a post from Ross Lovelace. “We’re trying to win an SEC Championship. Now we’re just moving up seeds.”
Moser went on to talk more about the NCAA Tournament, and he is very confident that the Sooners will hear their name called on Selection Sunday.
“We are a part of it,” Moser said, according to an article from 247Sports. “I mean, I thought we were above the bubble going into this game. What the conference is, it’s unprecedented. It’s unprecedented of what this league is, what you have to do night in and night out. For us, we want to just win and advance in this SEC tournament, then we’re going to get after it. But we are a part of it. No question. With as many quad-one wins that we’ve had, with the resiliency we’ve had. People talk about us playing the best basketball down the stretch in our last six games. We are part of it. We’re excited to be part of it. We’re also excited to advance in this tournament.”
The Oklahoma basketball team got themselves in this position by playing their best basketball down the stretch. The Sooners have won theit last three games, and now they are probably on the right side of the bubble.
“It’s more of these guys being resilient,” Moser said. “We’ve talked about our faith, fighting through hard in life. It was really hard, some of the losses we had. We just talked about the narrative in our own locker room. There can be all these narratives outside. You’re at Alabama, at Florida, at Auburn, at Missouri. We kept on believing in each other and staying resilient and believing in our locker room. We talked about just playing better winning basketball, to win games, to get in the NCAA tournament. It was like a business mission statement. We wanted to play better winning basketball.”
Oklahoma had a couple of opportunities for big wins down the stretch against Florida and Ole Miss. The Sooners lost those games, but they have responded well.
“These last six games… Then we had two gut punches,” Moser said. “We had a week of just a gut punch losing to Kentucky at home on that under six seconds, then Pedulla hitting that three. We come back, and how did these guys respond? Beat Missouri, win at Texas, beat Georgia. It’s a credit to their resiliency and the culture of our locker room to fight and stay together.”
Oklahoma has done a good job getting themselves on the right side of the bubble, but they are still on the bubble. A win against Kentucky on Thursday would probably secure them a spot in the big dance.
“They have so many offensive weapons,” Porter Moser said of Kentucky. “Otega, he’s been really consistent every game. They got so many different offensive weapons. It’s not one guy you have to key in on Kentucky. Their offense is so spaced out. They have fives that can pass. Amari and Brandon both can pass so well. They got shooters everywhere. They got veteran Final Four point guard. It’s going to be a group effort guarding all their motion, their blast actions. We’ll get after it. I know our guys were stung after that game. Both teams played their tail off. Looking forward to a great matchup tomorrow with Kentucky.”
The Oklahoma basketball team will tip off agaisnt Kentucky at 8:30 CT on Thursday night from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, and the game will be airing on the SEC Network. The Wildcats are currently favored by 6.5 points over the Sooners.
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