The Norman Transcript’s Mindy Ragan Wood reported last week that Cleveland County commissioners are pursuing a partnership with the University of Oklahoma’s athletic department and the OU Foundation to build a sports arena and “mixed-use development” in University North Park.
It’s the resurfacing of a development project proposal that was ultimately withdrawn from council consideration in July 2018 by the OU Foundation.
With a potential new arena once again a topic of conversation, The Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel asked Oklahoma head men’s basketball coach Porter Moser today how he felt about a new arena and if he supported the idea.
“Well, just to give a broad, general statement right now and I’ll probably go into more detail later, yeah, I definitely think it’s time for a new arena for a lot of reasons. And definitely been talking, you know, since I was hired with Joe [Castiglione]. He’s very much in those conversations and very aggressive with those conversations of what we want and done, but definitely. Lloyd Noble is I don’t know what it…is it 50 years old? It’s 50 years old. I mean, there’s people that’s had two arenas since then. Definitely it’s a huge part of what we want and the direction we want to go,” Moser said.
In the meantime, Moser’s focus remains on attracting and selling the fan base and students to come out to the Lloyd Noble Center to support this 2021-22 Oklahoma men’s basketball team.
“I’m doing what I can control right now and that’s trying to get those students in there and people in there and put a product on the floor where we’re playing our tails off that people want to root for us. And I’m going to keep doing that to connect with the students. I love our student body. I think they’re awesome. We all know it. We definitely need a new one,” Moser said.
As Moser indicated, this will be a topic he will readdress in the future once the season concludes.
“You know, like I said, I’ll dive into that more when the season’s over where I can really see the pros and cons of everything. I just know what we need,” Moser said.
Oklahoma men’s basketball is scratching and clawing late in the regular season to position itself for an NCAA Tournament berth. In Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology projection, he still has the Sooners in the “last four byes” section of his bracket.
An overdue welcome of Rutgers to the bracket after last night’s triumph over Illinois; moving in the opposite direction, North Carolina falls to “Last Four In” after an inexplicable home loss to Pitt. pic.twitter.com/JGA6LnURWA
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) February 17, 2022
After the 80-78 loss in overtime to Texas at home earlier this week, OU is now 14-12 overall and just 4-9 in Big 12 play. Despite leading a majority of the game and then putting together a valiant late-game comeback, OU lost at Kansas, 71-69, the game before Texas after Jordan Goldwire’s jumper to tie was just short to close regulation.
“It takes a lot. I mean, these guys mentally toughness. We’re right there. You’ve got to make some plays, some winning plays at the end. We made a bunch. We were down six or seven to get it to overtime. We had a chance to win it in regulation, didn’t get it done. Same thing at Kansas. We were down and found a way to have the ball to tie it or go [ahead], didn’t make the play. It takes a lot to get to that point. These guys are preparing like crazy. I think our staff, I think we’re game planning, we’re prepping, we’re scouting. The guys are really, really locked in. Just got to get over the hump, make some plays, some really winning plays down the stretch,” Oklahoma head men’s basketball coach Porter Moser said of the Sooners’ back-to-back close losses against Kansas and Texas.
The Sooners have lost nine of their past 11 games and head to Iowa State on Saturday at 1 p.m. for a massive bubble tilt.
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