Porter Moser assesses Oklahoma season so far, next steps

It’s been an up and down season thus far for Porter Moser and Oklahoma basketball. The Sooners began the year unranked, rose up to No. 7 in the AP poll after a 10-0 start to the season and now find themselves unranked again after a 5-5 start to Big 12 play.

OU bounced back from a loss to UCF with an 82-66 victory against No. 21 BYU on Tuesday night. The Sooners hope it can be the start of a winning streak, and Moser broke down the grind of the Big 12 and what his team has learned through the first half of conference play.

“We’ve had our moments,” he said. “We’ve been really good. We’ve had some stay with it. The thing about this league is you’re gonna learn. You can’t get too down and you can’t get too high. You’ve gotta bounce back. You try to get on one-game win streaks. Because every night it’s something. It’s crazy what you’ve gotta prepare for. So that’s what we’ve gotta do.”

The win against the Cougars was big as the Sooners entered that game having lost three of their past four contests. They used 20 points from Javian McCollum, including 15 in the second half.

It was also an impressive performance from the Oklahoma defense, which held BYU to just 35.9% shooting. They held Jaxson Robinson, the Cougars’ leading scorer, to just eight points on 2-of-8 shooting.

Meanwhile, the Sooners shot 49% from the field as Milos Uzan chipped in another 16 points.

“I thought we executed really well,” Moser said. “I thought we did some really good things to keep answering the bell instead of going cold for so long offensively, which we’ve done. For us to have that kind of defensive performance, we needed it on this night.”

The victory came after OU fell out of the AP poll for the first time in 10 weeks and improved the Sooners to 17-6 (5-5 Big 12). They currently find themselves tied for seventh place in the conference standings and are projected as a six seed in the NCAA Tournament according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.

If Oklahoma ultimately is able to make the NCAA Tournament, it would mark their first appearance under Porter Moser. For now, the Sooners will aim to add another win when they tip off against Oklahoma State at 6 p.m. CT on Saturday in Norman.