OU Basketball: Oklahoma Must Avoid 'Self Destructive' Tendencies Against No. 15 Missouri

It’s now or never for Oklahoma.

Porter Moser’s Sooners, who have lost their last two games by a combined four points to No. 19 Kentucky and Ole Miss, have slipped to the first team out of the NCAA Tournament in Joe Lunardi’s ESPN projections as of Tuesday.

OU has just two games left in the regular season, a Senior Night battle with No. 15 Missouri at Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday (7 p.m., SEC Network+) and a road trip to Texas.

The Tigers are one of the teams the Sooners have already met in SEC play, though that contest in Missouri was one to forget.

Oklahoma’s old Big 12 foe embarrassed the Sooners in Columbia, hammering OU 82-58 in a game that didn’t even feel that close.

How to Watch Oklahoma vs. No. 15 Missouri

Where: Lloyd Noble Center, Norman, OK
When: Wednesday, 7 p.m.
Channel: SEC Network+
Radio: 107.7 FM The Franchise

“We didn’t play well at all in almost every phase of the game there,” Moser said Tuesday. “I shouldn’t say that. We were self destructive.”

When the teams met on Feb. 12, Missouri forced 17 OU turnovers, won the rebounding battle 35-32, outshot the Sooners from the field 54.2 percent to 31 percent, and got to the free throw line 11 more times.

To turn the result around and give Oklahoma’s tournament hopes a jolt, Moser’s team will have to reverse those trends.

“We missed so many layups. We gave up so much in transition. Turnovers became dunks,” Moser said. “We shot 44 percent at the rim, that’s a season-low I think, and then they were unreal at the rim. And we just really — they have a lot of elite shooters, we did a good job on that. We just did not do a good job (in) transition, taking care of the ball, fouling.”

Missouri forward Mark Mitchell was at the center of the issues for OU, hitting the Sooners for a career-high 25 points while Oklahoma’s star freshman Jeremiah Fears was held to eight points on 3-of-13 shooting.

Missouri Tigers guard Mark Mitchell drives against Oklahoma Sooners guard Dayton Forsythe during the first meeting between the teams last month. | Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

Over the past few weeks, however, Fears has rediscovered his early season form.

He finished with 27 points and 10 assists to power his team past No. 25 Mississippi State on Feb. 22, then he added another 18 points, eight rebounds and six dimes in the one-point loss to No. 19 Kentucky.

Saturday, he scored 13 points, pulled down five rebounds and dished out seven assists against Mississippi while fellow freshman Dayton Forsythe poured in a career-high 25 points.

Throw in Jalon Moore’s steady contributions, and OU’s offense has kept the Sooners in games down the stretch.

But the lack of defensive stands late have proven costly.

“Since that (Missouri) game, man, we’ve been efficient on offense,” Moser said. “Sharing it. We’ve been playing off two feet. I think these last three games, won one and lost two and we were in a position to win both of them and we couldn’t get a stop.

“… We just have not been able to get that defensive stop.”

Piecing together enough stops against Missouri would do wonders to help change OU’s tournament destiny.

As of Tuesday, the Tigers were No. 12 in the NCAA NET Rankings, which would make a victory on Wednesday night a crucial Quad 1 win for the Sooners. OU is currently No. 53 in the NET Rankings.

Conference tournaments began on Monday, meaning the yearly scourge of tournament bid stealers haven’t wreaked havoc on the projections quite yet, so the Sooners likely need a pair of Quad 1 wins between the end of the regular season and the SEC Tournament to enter Selection Sunday with hope.

If OU isn’t ready to go on both ends of the floor come 7 p.m. Wednesday, then the task to go dancing for the first time under Moser will become that much more unlikely for Oklahoma.