Another year and another offseason of roster turnover for [autotag]Porter Moser[/autotag] and the Oklahoma Sooners men’s basketball team. The Sooners are coming off a year of growth but not enough to make the NCAA Tournament.
This marks the third straight season the Sooners have not gone dancing in March, which is unacceptable for a program like Oklahoma. The Sooners also now have their work cut out for them because they have to replace five key pieces from this past year’s team.
[autotag]Le’Tre Darthard[/autotag] and [autotag]Rivaldo Soares[/autotag] are out of eligibility. Milos Uzan, John Hugley and Otega Oweh have all entered the transfer portal. The writing seemed to be on the wall as the season was coming to a close but they still create a big hole to fill this offseason.
The Sooners did add two players to this past year’s recruiting class meaning they have four spots to fill in the transfer portal.
Some of the names the Sooners have reportedly been linked to are [autotag]Brandon Garrison[/autotag] from Oklahoma State, [autotag]Sean Pedulla[/autotag] from Virginia Tech and [autotag]Kevin Overton[/autotag] from Drake. What do they all have in common? They all played high school basketball in Oklahoma.
But right now, the state of the program is not good.
Does that mean those guys aren’t buying into Moser’s message? Are they not buying into the vision he has for the program or for them as individual players? What is the disconnect so far?
In this day and age, you can build a great team in the portal. North Carolina State and Alabama both did it. They both have several key pieces that transferred in this year or the year before. It can be done, but Oklahoma and Moser have to start hitting on the big fish.
I get Oklahoma isn’t a “basketball school” and is much more of a “football school”. A lot of people say Purdue is a basketball school and not a football school. Did you know since the 1980-1981 season, Purdue has made one Final Four, whereas Oklahoma has made three? Purdue ended their final four drought this season.
It’s time for the university and the people who support the school to start showing more support to the basketball team. Start raising NIL so they can be competitive in that space in the portal. If the Sooners will start getting competitive, they’ll have no problem getting fans into seats.
But it starts with the school taking it a little more seriously than they have to this point.
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