Porter Moser calls Javian McCollum a game-time decision for Texas game

Oklahoma scored a huge victory at Cincinnati this week without lead scorer Javian McCollum and Porter Moser says he doesn’t know whether the Sooners will have him on Saturday until tip-off.

A shoulder injury ultimately kept McCollum off the floor earlier in the week, and at a press conference ahead of the game at Texas this weekend, Moser answered that he had a update on McCollum’s status, just not much of one.

“Yeah, it’ll be a game-time decision with Javian based on on his pain tolerance, so we’ll see on how that feels,” said Moser. “But he’s progressing for sure, he’s progressing for sure, and it’ll be a game-time decision.”

But Oklahoma was in luck vs. Cincinnati as a different veteran transfer stepped up to help lead a win over the Bearcats. Rarely-deployed Slovenian senior Maks Klanjscek appeared in just his fourth Big 12 game of the season, played his highest minute total, and scored his first point since mid-December.

“He had a great stretch,” Moser said of McCollum’s replacement in the last outing. “He had, I think, seven points in a row. His confidence, you can only build on that because he hasn’t been thrust into those situations where the game’s been on the line very often.”

Perhaps not at Oklahoma, but Klanjscek is a seasoned hooper with five years at five different stops now under his belt. This guy was rookie at UMKC in 2020, then barely played at Salt Lake Community College in 2021, followed by a decent year at Maine in 2022, where he scored 9.7 points per contest and was the lead scorer for a truly awful Maine team. The Black Bears went 6-23, fired their coach towards the end of the year featured Klanjscek and Serbian Vukasin Masic as their only players to average more than 7.5 points.

After that experiment in Orono, Klanjscek spent a year at Houston Baptist where he averaged 15 points per game before transferring to OU just to average 2.1 points to date this season.

However, with that age comes a sort of reliability, and Klanjscek was ready to perform when his number was finally called by Porter Moser in a consequential moment.

“But he is older. He’s really confident,” says Moser of the super-senior. “He goes against Javian and ‘Los every single day, so he’s confident. So absolutely. I thought he made some key plays to help us win that game, and we definitely have confidence in him to help us tomorrow.”

So, if McCollum can’t go, Maks Klanjscek will be ready to be called on once again.