Where do Sooners stand in Big Dance?
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A first-round exit in the Big 12 Tournament has left Oklahoma at the mercy of the bubble.
Yet even after OU's 72-71 loss Wednesday to West Virginia, the Sooners aren't among the eight teams ESPN's Bracketology lists as “last four in” and “last four byes.”
The worry for coach Lon Kruger's squad is how conference tournaments will play out between now and Sunday afternoon. The Sooners received help Thursday from a few bubble teams they're seemingly ahead of with St. John's, TCU, N.C. State and Indiana all losing.
“If you could tell me the rest of the outcomes, I could give you a better answer,” Joe Castiglione said Wednesday
night when asked if he was confident in OU's standing.
The Oklahoma athletic director would know. Castiglione is a former chair of the NCAA men's basketball committee.
“It's the type of situation where the profile of this team gets considered against the profile of very similar teams, and it depends on what those teams actually continue to do,” he said. “So we don't have a chance to change anything before the selection.”
ESPN's Basketball Power Index gives OU a 56 percent chance of making the tournament. It was a 98 percent lock had the Sooners topped the Mountaineers.
But can the balance of 31 prior games really be swung 42 percentage points based on one result?
“The way the conference tournaments go, obviously outside of winning the conference tournament and getting an automatic bid, one thing that does help teams is the opportunity to play more games against higher-ranked opponents,” Castiglione said. “The chance to beat higherranked opponents. That can help differentiate some teams that are in certain kind of band when you're looking at comparable records.”
The Sooners stand 19-13 with a 7-12 record against Big 12 teams.
Oklahoma's loss to West Virginia in the Sprint Center was its worst of the season based on the team sheet the selection committee will review.
Games are weighed by quadrants, one through four, with Quadrant 1 games being valued most, and Quadrant 4 valued least.
Oklahoma is the only team in the country that didn't play a Quadrant 4 game. Put simply, the Sooners didn't schedule a gimme. But the loss to West Virginia was OU's first against a Quadrant 3 opponent. For neutral site games, Quadrant 3 opponents range in the NET rankings from 101 to 200.
West Virginia is NET No. 110, but is likely to rise after upsetting No. 2 seed Texas Tech on Thursday night.
As ESPN's John Gasaway noted, OU, and TCU for that matter, could become the first tournament-bound teams in 20-plus years that won fewer than eight games in an 18-game conference schedule.
Oklahoma is ranked 40th in the NET, boosted by the 22nd-toughest schedule.
The Sooners will be monitoring conference tournaments from the Pac-12 in Las Vegas to the ACC in Charlotte.
The best case scenario for OU is that favorites win out, keeping the bubble soft.
The bracket will be revealed beginning at 5 p.m. Sunday on CBS.
“It's very frustrating having things in our control and then letting this game get away from us,” forward Kristian Doolittle said. “We've gotta hope for the best.”