The Sooners pulled off a big victory over the weekend, completing the Bedlam Series season sweep with their 82-78 win over Oklahoma State in the regular season finale.

But now the stakes are upped.

OU is set to roll into the Big 12 Tournament, and the Sooners await the winner of the 6 p.m. game Wednesday, which features No. 7 seed OSU and No. 10 seed Iowa State.

Most likely, OU will get matched up with the Cowboys for the third time this season, and it will be even more difficult than the last two.

Beating a team three times in the same season is difficult, so that could be the Sooners’ first tough test on the their way to surging toward the NCAA Tournament.

But it won’t end there.

Assuming OU beats the Cowboys or the Cyclones, whomever it may be, when they meet Thursday night, the Sooners would presumably move on to face a formidable opponent that beat them less than a week ago.

The Missouri Tigers are an interesting team.

The tigers got drilled by the Kansas Jayhawks 90-65 in Allen Fieldhouse after falling behind 45-19 at halftime.

Then they bounced back and beat the No. 4 Sooners 73-64 Wednesday night to move into a tie for second place in the Big 12.

But then they traveled to Texas A&M and dropped their season finale by 10, ultimately letting the Sooners into the No. 2 spot.

Nevertheless, the Tigers are a difficult team to game plan for with their up-tempo, helter skelter style of play.

They are a Louisville-type team that tries to force other teams into making mistakes with their full-court pressure, and if the Sooners are able to handle the Tigers better than they did in Columbia, they likely would be rewarded with a rematch with Kansas.

The Jayhawks are high off their victory over Texas and their fifth-straight Big 12 Championship, owed much in part to beating the Blake-less Sooners two weeks ago in Norman.

But with another chance at Kansas in the championship game, should OU and Jayhawks both make it that far, the Sooners would be able to do two major things:

A.) Show everyone they are still the class of the conference, and

B.) Possibly clinch a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

OU has to win at least a few games in the conference tournament to gain some momentum and prove they stopped the recent slide of losing three of four games.

Anything less than that would leave question marks going into the NCAA Tournament, and perhaps hinder the Sooners from going as far in the tournament as their talent should allow.

-Joey Helmer is a journalism senior.