With its SEC tournament position nearly set and only two regular-season games remaining, OU men’s basketball enters its final home game still fighting for momentum.
OU men's basketball head coach Porter Moser on team's resilience ahead of final home game
“It says a lot about who they are … says a lot about the group as a whole, and everybody involved … is just believing in each other and staying with it,” head coach Porter Moser said. “The easy thing in life is just to take this victim mentality and ‘poor us’ … That's just the easy route. The hard route is to keep getting back up in life. And these guys kept on getting back up, and we're getting better.”
Moser’s group has endured significant adversity this season, including a nine-game losing streak and losing sophomore guard Dayton Forsythe to ankle injuries twice. However, the Sooners have stayed in the fight, mustering a 15-14 record, going 5-11 in conference play, with four losses coming in two-score games. With Forsythe healthy again, Moser believes OU can add two more quality wins against Missouri (20-9, 10-6 SEC) and Texas (18-11, 9-7 SEC) to close out its second SEC campaign and make up a bit of ground ahead of the SEC Tournament.
“The ability to have a third ball handler in Dayton—it's night and day,” Moser said. “He missed four SEC games … Then he had five games where he was trying to come back ... And since then, those last seven, he's averaged 10 ... The difference in our team the last seven games of having another ball hand, having a guy who's averaging 10 off the bench.”
As things stand, OU has an SEC ceiling of 11th after Georgia (20-9, 8-8 SEC) secured its eighth conference win, eliminating the bottom six teams from a possible top-10 finish. The Sooners are tied with Mississippi State (13-16, 5-11 SEC), but a head-to-head win gives the Bulldogs the edge, leaving OU at 13th in the SEC Tournament standings with the possibility of meeting again in the first round if the standings remain the same.
“At the end of the day, this is about life. Life beyond basketball,” senior guard Nijel Pack said. “Learning different lessons, life lessons as being a man. You have to fight through adversity … That's what we learned here. When things weren't going our way. How do we continue to fight?”
Next, the Sooners return to Lloyd Noble Center for the final time this season to face Missouri (20-9, 10-6 SEC) at 6 p.m. Tuesday on ESPNU.
This story was edited by Laurie Jones.
