OU basketball gets THE opportunity vs. No. 1 Houston

It has been a week of celebration for OU athletics. The OU women’s basketball team won a dramatic game vs. No. 3 Texas to clinch the Big 12 championship.

Then softball opened up its palace, Love’s Field, on Friday afternoon.

Now? It’s time for men’s basketball. Arguably, the toughest ask of the weekend. But also maybe the biggest opportunity for head coach Porter Moser and the Sooners.

How to watch

No. 1 Houston (25-3, 12-3) at OU (19-9, 7-8)
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
TV: ESPN.

Before the game, it will feel like a celebration. Head coach Kelvin Sampson in his return to Norman, after 12 years of leading the Sooners in the past.

Add in guys like Quannas White and Hollis Price and Kellen Sampson, it’s going to be memorable. But once it hits 7 p.m., it’s time to go work.

A night of opportunity. And OU is hopeful for one more celebration this week.

Soares gets the nod

OU didn’t get the win at Iowa State on Wednesday, but there was a big change. Rivaldo Soares earned his first start of the season. It was Otega Oweh coming off the bench.

“The logic was, at Oklahoma State, started Waldo in the second half,” Moser said. “I thought Otega had a great half. Sitting there and getting a feel of the start of the game. It worked at Oklahoma State. He had his best half in a long time. Just changing it up.

“We really need Otega to get going. Looking at that, the logic. Obviously, we’re going to stay with that again.”

Soares has been dynamic coming down the stretch. And anything can get Oweh to play at a high level again is welcomed. Soares has simply been too good to be denied here lately.

Bring out the physicality

If you thought ISU was physical, here comes Houston. No. 1 for a reason. The defense, the rebounding, the fundamentals.

The total package.

That’s the challenge for OU. The Sooners need to match the physicality. They need to bring the fight to the No. 1 team Saturday.

“I told them I’m not going to ask the officials for any over-the-back calls. That’s what I said, but that’s not going to be the reality of what’s going to happen. But you know, we just got to be physical on boxing out. I think John—obviously, losing John, we lost a big part of our physicality, whether it was a post-up game and getting some deep post-ups with a physicality, but also defensively of rebounding with a physicality, not getting pushed around in there.

“So, I thought we got pushed around a little bit at Iowa State, and we talked about that. We watched it on film. We’ve got to be physically tough with our block-outs, low-leveraged, and out to in. You just can’t migrate to the paint on a team as elite as Houston is at rebounding.”

If there’s a positive about ISU? It has OU primed and ready for Houston. You know what’s coming, get after it. 

“It has to, because you can’t simulate it in practice. So, we saw it Wednesday, and we saw where we struggled, and you can learn from it. We got to grow. You got to grow through it. Through struggle, you have to grow. So, we just had a struggle, and we got to grow from it Saturday. It’s the only option we can look at is we got to be better against that physicality.

“We talked to Javian. We talked to Los. Talked to Le’tre, the guards—Waldo and Otega, all the guards about it. We talked to our bigs, Luke, about being more physical in there. We really talked to Luke about that, so it’s been a point of contention, but it’s hard to simulate, and we just had that simulation Wednesday, so that’s the only thing it could do is help you grow from it.”

Final word

“When we got to the Sweet 16 (with Loyola in 2021), our team room was right next to Houston. We had a week off, so every day, saw coach. My name was rumored for a lot of jobs. Oklahoma, at the time, wasn’t open. We were talking about being happy. I remember talking to him when Oklahoma was open. He was like, that is the best place, best people. He had the greatest things to say about it.” – Moser on his relationship with Kelvin Sampson