OU basketball with one last chance to impress before SEC play
The similarities are almost too eerie right now for OU basketball. An incredibly hot start, full of wins against legitimate Power 5 conference competition.
Sound familiar? Yea, last season OU was 10-0 as well heading into the Jumpman Invitational. Problem was those wins everybody thought would mean so much? Ended up meaning very little as those teams disappointed.
Fast forward 52 weeks, and here we are. Porter Moser has OU at 10-0 for the second straight season. Usually? Wins against Arizona and Louisville are going to carry you to March.
Well, not right now. OU is No. 41 in the NET Rankings. And despite five wins against big-time competition, none of them are resonating at this moment.
*No. 48 Arizona
*No. 60 Louisville
*No. 74 Providence
*No. 95 Oklahoma State
*No. 173 Georgia Tech
Out of all that, OU has one Quad 1 victory and three in the Quad 2 section. So No. 24 Michigan in Charlotte? This means something.
The 14th-ranked Sooners take on No. 24 Michigan at 8 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN2. The Wolverines are No. 25 in the NET rankings. This is a win that could carry some weight come March.
OU tried to play some tough teams in neutral site settings. You don’t figure to win Battle 4 Atlantis and not register massive NET victories but that was the case.
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The Sooners have a couple of gimme home games following Michigan, but there would be a world of difference between 12-1 and 13-0 in the eyes of perception.
Despite the very unexpected undefeated start, OU needs this one in Charlotte.
Fears’ consistency standing out
Every game, you’re really seeing it with freshman guard Jeremiah Fears. Think a lot of people are waiting for that wall or slump, and he just keeps going.
Fears has scored in double-digits in each game of his career. And his court vision and IQ feels like it is going up as he faces more competition.
“Ah yeah, it’s very fun,” senior guard Kobe Elvis said. “I’m there for a lot of the stuff with him, all the morning workouts. So I see a lot of his preparation. I see what he does on a daily basis with the coaches. Like, those guys go at it every day. His work really shows.”
Moser has shown a nice ability to let Fears be who he is, which includes some mistakes. Keep riding the wave, working out pretty well so far.
“You know, he has that gear to him,” Moser said. “I think we were getting into the pocket a lot early, and then they went to switching late. Being able to take on that switch—Duke got by, Kobe, all three of them got to trying to attack the switch. It’s very hard to switch with Fears because he’s got that gear. Just continuing to (work on) situational stuff. Man, he had a pass to Kobe, he snapped it to him in the corner for a 3. That was a high-level pass. Just snapped it across court, all the way to Kobe for a 3.”
