OU basketball ready for year No. 4 under Porter Moser

It’s that time of year again for OU basketball. And much like last year, expectations are incredibly low from those not in the program.

OU comes in No. 15 of 16 in the SEC for a preseason ranking. Now KenPom sees it a lot differently, having OU No. 9 in the league and No. 40 overall.

OU surpassed expectations, earning a 20-win regular season. But there is still plenty of work to be done, now in the SEC.

Time for year No. 4 for OU under head coach Porter Moser. A program that remembers all too well what happened on Selection Sunday. The dreaded First Team Out label doesn’t go away, but the goal is to never duplicate it.

Here is what Moser said at SEC Media Days on Tuesday afternoon in Alabama.

(Editor’s note: Local OU media day is set for next week in Norman).

Adjusting from Big 12 to SEC?

Well, first of all, I’m so excited to have a home. I’ve been to three straight media days knowing I was going to be in a different conference and answering questions about the SEC, so it’s great to be answering questions at the SEC media day.

The big difference is obviously you’re not into the games yet. I’ve been in a great league, and I must be the good luck charm because I think the Big 12 the last three years have had like nine teams in the top 25 and all of a sudden this is a year where we have nine teams in the top 25 here.

This level, the SEC, there’s unbelievable coaches. The talent level is tremendous. Just been watching a lot of games. We’ve played SEC teams.

The offensive rebounding, the athleticism in transition and the athleticism on the glass is just phenomenal, as you watch in the off-season of just the constant pressure that’s put on you in transition on the glass.

But they’re elite leagues. The SEC is going to take a backseat to nobody this year, and I think it’s going to be the best league in the country this year.

How long did Selection Sunday sting?

People talk about balance of your roster, and that Sunday was probably — of my professional career, was one of the worst days to where you’re feeling all — the whole year you’re in, and that’s why you can’t look at that crap. You can’t wake up and look at that app on your phone, the bracketology, whatever it is, because every day from like December 1st we were in. And we were 18-6 and lost 1, 4 and 6 leading scorers, and we ended up not getting in on that day.

But my faith tells you a lot about perseverance. What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t break you, makes you stronger. So we share that day with Sam Godwin and Jalon Moore, who were here, and we talk about that a lot. That was one of the hardest days we went through.

We combined it with I think four or five guys that have played in the tournament. So we got a mix of guys that have played in it, one guy played in the Final Four, a bunch of other guys played in the tournament with guys that had that day. I loved watching that blend of emotions come together. That’s what’s been part of that.

But yeah, it’s rough. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that Selection Sunday, and I could get up here and talk about a lot of different things about how that went down and what was right and what went wrong about that day, but that’s not going to help me. What’s going to help me is putting together this team and moving forward so that day doesn’t happen again.

Season outlook?

I think that having this many newcomers, unfortunately, has been the new reality of what’s going on. I’ve been such a coach with development, retention, I’m a big believer in your newcomers come in and they see how the older guys do things. At Loyola I was such a big believer. Retention has been hard with the transfer portal and NIL combined.

The one thing I will say is two of our toughest players that we had on last year’s 20-win season was Sam Godwin and Jalon Moore. Those were two starters that had been through a lot. So we added these newcomers. And the one thing that those newcomers — we got a lot of different blends — can say every day is two of our hardest practicing guys every single day are Jalon Moore and Sam Godwin. That’s the standard of how hard they’re going.

I think those two guys really bring in some toughness, some athleticism. I think we brought in some shooting. It doesn’t mean anything about the past, but we have somewhere — our shooting I think is really up based on what we’re doing in this off-season, tracking all the numbers. So I definitely — analytically, I feel like we’re going to shoot the ball better and more often.

But the thing that you have to do, just studying this league, is you’ve got to be better rebounding. It’s the best offensive rebounding league in the country, and you’ve got to be able to rebound and stop that break. So I think that’s one of the things we’ve been focusing in on day in and day out.

What does Mo Wague bring to the table?

So Mo came in and he had a broken foot. He gutted it out playing the second half of the season there with that stress fracture. They took care of it, had the surgery, went in the portal, and I just liked that he played for Nate and he played for Bob Huggins. He had tasted winning. We needed another big. I thought he defended, rebound, ran the court.

He had experience — so I thought there was so many positives, who he played for, his journey. But you had to weigh in the injury. He’s been great. He’s been cleared healthy for about a month. Looking as good as running the court, rebounding.

He’s got that apprehension that you have coming back from a surgery like that on a foot past him now. The first couple weeks he was apprehensive. Now you can just see his experience of running the court, defensively communicating. We’re expecting big things from him, and I’m really counting on him a lot this year, especially having gone through the SEC wars that he’s gone through.