Porter Moser explains difficulty of building programs in new college sports era

Coming off a 15-16 season in his second year in charge of the Oklahoma program, coach Porter Moser discussed some of the difficulties in building a program in the transfer portal era.

Frankly, you need some players who are fully invested to help you out. That’s not always a formula that works with transfers so frequent these days.

“It’s hard, because everybody wants the quick fix nowadays,” Moser said. “If you’re not playing right away, the grass is greener somewhere else.”

Oklahoma, like many teams, has fallen victim to transfers you don’t want to see leaving the program.

“Why is it more difficult? When you build a program it’s about retaining guys that believe in your culture that are good enough to win, then the next year the newcomers come in and there’s a group of guys and you’re like, ‘This is how it’s done,'” Moser explained.

“Well we inherited three players and then two of them at the very end went into the transfer portal. So all the sudden you invested a lot of minutes in those guys and now they’re not here. So now you’ve got a set of new guys.”

Can players be patient for development?

As Moser explained, there’s a development curve that comes along with playing college basketball.

Even the most elite talents don’t always have things click right away.

“There was a stat on Twitter, they wrote an article, of the top 100 ranked high school players, only 17 freshmen are averaging double-figures,” Moser said. “So that means 83 of the top 100 are not even averaging double figures. Does that mean we’re going to have 83 transfers? Does that mean 83 people are unhappy? It just takes some time.

“I think building a program it’s about development. It’s about instilling your culture. But then it’s about retaining them, so when the new guys come in they’re like, ‘This is how it’s done.'”

Oklahoma has some culture guys

Though his team had a difficult season this year on the heels of an NIT appearance in Moser’s first year, the new Oklahoma coach believes he has some solid culture guys on this squad.

Moreover, he’s not ready to tweak his overall approach based on the difficulties.

“Absolutely more difficult with the transfer portal, but unequivocally I’m not changing directions,” Moser said. “What I mean by that is just because it’s more difficult to build a program and it’s more long-term doesn’t mean I’m going to stop believing what I believe in and go for the quick fix.”

Instead, Moser will focus on development and getting his culture guys to help build the program with him.

“I’m still just completely focused on that, pouring into guys,” Moser said. “You look at Milos (Uzan), Otega (Oweh), Jalen (Hill‘s) everything I’m about in the program. You looked at what he did, his improvement. Last year’s improvement over the year before, before he got here, and then this year’s improvement. He really improved his shot. It’s about developing guys, keeping them in.”