COLUMN: What's Next for Oklahoma Basketball? Probably More of the Same

In three mediocre seasons under Porter Moser, there are many reasons why the Sooners have gone nowhere — and a new arena (and clumsy threats) won't fix things.

Oklahoma coach Porter Moser / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY

We’re not sure where Porter Moser can go from here.

Moser has coached the Oklahoma basketball team for three years now, and the program is stuck on a treadmill — he’s running as fast as he can, working as hard as he can, and he’s definitely sweating — but he’s gotten absolutely nowhere.

While the Final Four unfolds in Phoenix this weekend, Moser and his squad — what’s left of it — can take stock in … what, exactly?

The NCAA Transfer Portal has done what it always seems to do to the Sooners — laid bare a team that only a couple months ago (or, this time, a couple weeks ago) had high hopes. 

Ever since Lon Kruger rode off into the sunset following his swan song of one final NCAA Tournament bid, Moser and the transfer portal and the selection committee and the Big 12 gauntlet and the occasionally fickle fan base and the city of Norman and the president of the university and the uninspiring Lloyd Noble Center and maybe a few other things have all played a part in putting the program in this dim, dark place where turning down an NIT bid is actually a good idea.

Consider this: next year’s senior class of college basketball players pondering entry into the portal have now gone the entire span of their college career so far without Oklahoma making the NCAA Tournament.

And consider this: so has next year’s senior class of high school prospects still weighing their future college destination.

Three years is an eternity to a 16-year-old recruit trying to make a momentous decision, but it’s even more profound to a 21-year-old college kid staring into the abyss that is adulthood. Young people have almost no memory of the Sooners making a postseason run.

Forget how far away the Final Four team of 2016 feels. No NCAA Tournament bids for three straight years? How is Moser supposed to recruit to that?

“We have this long list of current NBA guys at OU. Well, four.”

“We have this incredible arena and basketball facility. Well, it used to be.”

“We have this amazing, crazy, devoted fan base. Well, sometimes.”

“We have a new arena coming. In far north Norman, about 6 miles from campus. Or maybe in Moore. That’s 10 miles away. Or it could be in Oklahoma City, about 25 miles to the north. If the taxpayers approve it, that is.”

Or maybe Moser can sell OU as a transfer portal launchpad. Names like Brady Manek and Alondes Williams and Elijah Harkless and Mo Gibson (who all started in the Kruger era) starred in Norman, then portaled their way to success elsewhere.

Manek went to the national title game at North Carolina. Williams was an All-ACC performer at Miami and has become a dunk sensation in his second year of pro basketball. Harkless averaged a career-best 19.1 points last year at UNLV. Gibson led DePaul in scoring last year at 15.8 points per game. 

Similar success may await Moser’s latest departures when guys like Javian McCollum, Otega Oweh, Milos Uzan and even John Hugley eventually land at their new destinations. And there could be more leaving behind them, who can say?

Frankly, Moser’s teams play a style of basketball that’s not easy on the eyes. If there’s not a quick shot early in the shot clock, there’s often a desperation heave late. And when things get hard — when defenses get good, such as in Big 12 Conference play — buckets are extremely hard to come by.

And that’s probably a hard sell for a lot of high school recruits and portal targets. Throw in the arena, dwindling attendance, the lack of postseason success, Moser’s record so far and the annual exodus of frontline talent, and Moser’s push to bring in talent only becomes more challenging.

The future isn’t exactly bright. While it’s widely believed that Oklahoma will get a break in men’s basketball when the Sooners join the SEC, that assessment is going to need further analysis.

The narrative that the Big 12 is college basketball’s premier league is true. It is. But any suggestion that the Big 12 lords over the other leagues is not true. The Big 12 landed a record eight teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament, but only two of those survived the first weekend, and none made the Elite Eight.

The SEC, meanwhile, which also secured eight tournament bids, has one team in the Final Four and almost landed two. 

SEC basketball is no slouch. Quite the contrary. Conference play for the Sooners next year will be no easier.

And that’s a tough pill to swallow for a coach whose three-year record in Norman is 54-45 overall and just 20-34 in Big 12 play.

Another question: Is Moser a defensive coach? Or an offensive coach? 

How about both — or neither?

Moser’s first two years, the Sooners averaged 69.1 and 67.7 points per game. In Year One, the OU offense ranked second in the Big 12 in field goal percentage, but ninth in field goal defense. The next year, the Sooners ranked ninth in points per game but third in fewest points allowed.

Just pick one and get good at it.

Then again, it’s probably really hard to establish an identity as a basketball program — offensively or defensively — when the roster is plowed under every year. Moser is passionate about building a successful basketball culture at OU, but how’s that even possible with six transfers — almost half the roster — leaving and six more coming in every year? 

And now, like they always do, more opinions about the LNC have resurfaced.

It’s a tired subject, but it’s fair game because it’s a tired arena. It’s a multipurpose venue with no character, no soul, and no vibe. The old highlights are always fun to relive, but ancient history is irrelevant to today’s players and today’s younger, louder fans. The seats are too far away from the floor, the arena upkeep hasn’t been great, the patchwork improvements down through the years feel out of place and unintegrated, and the school and the athletic department are obviously not invested financially or otherwise in making Lloyd Noble great again.

For what it's worth, the vote here is to raze the thing and start all over.

But really, does OU basketball need a $200 million arena when the men’s team can’t even make the NCAA Tournament? For Jennie Baranczyk's women's team, or for K.J. Kindler's gymnastics squad, maybe. Those two have combined for six NCAA appearances, five Big 12 championships, and two national championships (so far) in the last three years.

Although it certainly wouldn't hurt, it won't be a new arena that breathes life back into OU basketball.

There’s consideration of a $1 billion sports and entertainment district on the northern edge of Norman, just off Interstate 35 near the shopping district surrounding Robinson Avenue, but it feels pie-in-the-sky to think Norman taxpayers want to fund even a portion of it with their own pockets — not in this economy. Anyway, with a proposed capacity of 8,000 seats, it would be the smallest hoops venue in the SEC by a significant margin. 

Does OU really want to be known for that in its new conference? 

Earlier this week, OU president Joe Harroz went so far as to tell the OU Daily that he’d consider moving Sooner basketball (and women’s gymnastics) to other cities if the new arena isn’t approved

“I’m very hopeful and (will) do everything I can to keep it here in Norman,” Harroz told the OU Daily. “But if this isn’t approved by the city council for whatever reason, then we’re going to be looking at other (cities), Oklahoma City, Moore, surrounding areas, and figure out where is there a group that wants to do this.” 

Of course, that stance was immediately panned on social media and widely scorned by community leaders.

At best, Harroz made a veiled but clumsy threat, a ham-fisted gambit often used by professional sports’ billionaire bunch — “build us a new arena or we’ll move the franchise” — meant to bully taxpayers and fans. It's one big reason the Thunder moved to OKC from Seattle. It works sometimes in pro sports, but sometimes it doesn’t.

It won’t work in college. The political tendrils of a 130-year-old institution of higher learning simply run too deep.

Don’t they?

On second thought, in an age when schools’ financial resources and donor bases are stretched thinner than ever due to overspending, underplanning and the tidal surge of NIL, in an age when unlimited transfers can cripple or resurrect a basketball program, maybe it’s par for the course to ask if the citizens of Moore are interested in a tax hike for a new arena for a team that isn't able to build a culture, can't establish a roster or hasn't even made the NCAA Tournament.