Tramel's ScissorTales: Porter Moser knows OU men's basketball needs a talent upgrade
Porter Moser knows he needs more talent. Knows that Big 12 basketball is a rough-and-tumble but skilled-and-athletic conference.
Knows that culture-building and character-developing alone won't pull OU basketball out of the doldrums. Elite talent is required.
Don't misunderstand. Moser believes in all that culture-building. He still says building a program, more than building a team, is Priority A.
But Moser knows he's swimming upstream in this transfer-portal era.
"Absolutely more difficult with the transfer portal," Moser said. "But unequivocally, I’m not changing directions. What I mean by that is, just because it’s more difficult to build a program, doesn’t mean I’ve stopped believing in what I believe in and looking for the quick fix."
Moser's Sooners, 15-16 overall, play Oklahoma State at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Big 12 Tournament. Without a historic run to the championship, OU will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in Moser's two seasons.
He was hired amid much fanfare two years ago, after a rousing run of success at Loyola-Chicago. But the Sooners have been mediocre these last two years, overwhelmed by the Big 12's prowess as the nation's best conference.
More:Tanner Groves shines in OU's 'surreal' Senior Day win over No. 22 TCU
Moser has struggled to galvanize the fan base, though not his employers. The Sooner brass is bullish on their basketball coach. And that's not some kind of vote of confidence.
"We're truly excited about our future with him as our coach," OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said. "We've got the right coach."
Moser knows what he’s doing. Knows how to build a program. But his arrival at OU was ill-timed. College basketball's transient nature works against program-building.
"If you build a program, it’s about retaining guys who believe in your culture and are good enough to win," Moser said. "And then the next year, the newcomers come in and there is a group of guys that are like, 'This is how it’s done.'"
Moser inherited four scholarship players from the Lon Kruger era — Jalen Hill, Elijah Harkless, Umoja Gibson and Rick Issanza — but only Hill remains. Harkless and Gibson were last-minute portal entries after last season.
So the culture building has fallen on Hill and the coaches.
"It’s hard because everybody wants the quick fix," Moser said. "If you’re not playing right away, the grass is greener somewhere else."
But frankly, Moser's culture seems fine. The Sooners keep clawing. With every reason to let go of the rope in this 2022-23 season, the Sooners have continued to fight. In the last 2½ weeks, OU has beaten Kansas State, Texas Christian and Iowa State, the latter on the road. All are NCAA Tournament-bound.
Talent is where OU has fallen short. The Sooners have some quality Big 12 players, but not near enough. Moser knows that.
He needs to keep freshmen Milos Uzan and Otega Oweh out of the portal. And it would be a big help if veterans Hill and Grant Sherfield return for a fifth year.
More:Why Milos Uzan is thriving in his freshman season with OU men's basketball
"It's about development, it’s about instilling your culture, then it’s about retaining them, so when the new guys come in, we’re like, 'This is how it’s done,’” Moser said.
Moser lauds Big 12 powerhouses Baylor and Kansas for their stability and veterans. KU won the Big 12 led by fourth-year players Jalen Wilson and DaJuan Harris. Baylor's current rotation includes four players who averaged at least 10 minutes a game on the 2021 NCAA championship team — Adam Flagler, L.J. Cryer, Flo Thamba and Jonathan Tchamwa-Tchatchoua.
"Then you’ve got to combine that with upgrading your talent," Moser said. "You gotta get your roster right. You gotta have your culture, but gotta upgrade your talent every year. Bring in guys that can upgrade that roster. I think that’s part of it as well."
Moser said the one thing he's learned in two Big 12 years is how age matters. Old teams prosper. The portal and the extra season of eligibility due to the pandemic have made some squads ultra-experienced.
"Fifth-year guys ... there’s a bunch in our league," Moser said. "The physicality, the age, to knowing it’s hard to do it with young guys. That’s what you’ve noticed.
"And the fact that we’re in a two-year, unprecedented window in the Big 12, being ranked that way, is a symbol of all that. It’s elite coaches. Got some of the best players in the country. It’s been an old league, an old physical, veteran league."
More:Why Tanner Groves will 'never regret' his decision to transfer to OU basketball
New feud: Jacie Hoyt vs. Jennie Baranczyk
OU hired women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk in April 2021. OSU hired Jacie Hoyt a year later.
Two inspired hires. Two rejuvenated programs. The Bedlam Series is back in women’s basketball, and Baranczyk-Hoyt will be a spirited rivalry, unless conference realignment interrupts the series.
And now we’ve even got a feud. OU beat OSU 80-71 Saturday in Stillwater to secure a share of the Big 12 championship, and the coaches got into a heated exchange after the game. The Sooners celebrated on the Gallagher-Iba Arena court — for too long, in Hoyt’s estimation, considering the Cowgirls were trying to commence with Senior Day activities.
Baranczyk later said she and Hoyt talked things out and “I think we’re good.”
This is a natural result of post-game Senior Day ceremonies. Such pomp historically is staged before games, when the crowd is bigger and the emotions of the game haven’t bubbled over.
Of course, emotions are what coaches try to avoid by moving the events to after the game. This isn’t just a women’s thing. Kelvin Sampson moved his OU Senior Day ceremonies to after the game, because he usually was so emotional when honoring his seniors.
But when the home team loses, the process breaks down. The seniors are in no mood to be honored, the fans lose their enthusiasm and the coaches are consumed by the defeat.
Emotions are frayed after any game, so the Hoyt-Baranczyk fracas was not the least bit surprising.
Who was chiefly at fault Saturday? I’d need to know the timeline.
Did the Sooners celebrate for two minutes? That doesn’t seem excessive. Five minutes? That’s excessive.
If the Sooners were out there for only two minutes, Hoyt should have sucked it up and waited. If the Sooners were out there for five minutes, Baranczyk should have gotten her team off the court.
More:Tramel's ScissorTales: Madi Williams, Ana Llanusa & Taylor Robertson are OU teammates for the ages
Last ‘normal’ Big 12 Tournament
The first “normal” Big 12 Tournament since 2019 starts Wednesday in Kansas City. It’s also the last “normal” Big 12 Tournament ever.
2020: After two first-round games in KC, the tournament was canceled as the pandemic hit.
2021: The tournament was staged but with limited attendance (25 percent).
2022: Only nine teams competed, with OSU ineligible.
2023: Normal.
2024: Four new schools will join the fray, for a 14-team tournament.
2025: OU and Texas will be gone to the Southeastern Conference, so the 12-team format returns for the first time since 2011.
Wild times. In this transfer-portal era, teams can undergo wild swings from year to year, so you can’t transfer too much from 2023 into 2024.
But let’s look at how the four eventual newcomers are faring in their final season before joining the Big 12.
Houston
Get ready for Kelvin Sampson. Sampson won three Big 12 Tournaments while coaching OU from 1994-2006, and his overall record in the tournament was 18-9.
Now Sampson is coaching the top-ranked Cougars, who made the 2021 Final Four and the 2022 regional final. Houston is ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll and figures to be a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.
UofH is 29-2 overall and went 17-1 in the American Conference. The Cougars play Friday in the American Tournament quarterfinals against the South Florida-East Carolina winner.
Houston is a threat to win the NCAA championship. Do it, and the Big 12 in 2023-24 would claim the three most recent NCAA titlists — Baylor ‘21, Kansas ‘22, Houston ‘23.
Cincinnati
The Bearcats are 20-11 and finished 11-7 in the American. They figure to have to win the conference tournament to make the NCAAs.
Cincinnati is a tradition-rich basketball school and should help the Big 12’s profile and status. But UC has struggled since longtime coach Mick Cronin went to UCLA in 2019. Cincinnati has gone four straight seasons without making the NCAA Tournament, and this year would mean five in a row.
Second-year coach Wes Miller seems to have Cincinnati on the upswing, but five straight years without an NCAA bid is lengthy. The longest current Big 12 drought is Kansas State, which last made it in 2019, but the Wildcats will make it in 2023.
Brigham Young
The Cougars were beaten 76-69 by Saint Mary’s in the West Coast Conference semifinals Monday night. BYU, 19-15 overall, isn’t considered an NCAA Tournament candidate.
The Cougars went 7-11 in the WCC. BYU has spent 12 years in the conference and leaves without a title, either regular season or tournament.
That’s no surprise — Gonzaga has ruled over the league — but BYU hasn’t even been the chief challenger to the Zags. Saint Mary’s has assumed that mantle.
Since 2015, BYU has made the NCAA Tournament just once, in 2021. In four years as coach, Mark Pope has had similar success to previous coach Dave Rose. The Big 12 will be a culture shock for the Cougars.
Central Florida
The Knights play Southern Methodist in the American Tournament first round on Thursday. UCF, 17-13 overall and 8-10 in the conference, is not an NCAA Tournament contender.
UCF is coached by former Duke star Johnny Dawkins, who in seven seasons has reached the NCAA Tournament only once. The 2019 Knights won a game in the NCAAs and pushed Zion Williamson-led Duke to overtime in the second round.
Since then, UCF’s overall record is 62-51, including 32-40 in the American. Central Florida starts out on the bottom of the Big 12.
More:Tramel's ScissorTales: Will Alabama's Nick Saban get his way with SEC football scheduling?
Mailbag: OU-Arkansas in the SEC
Arkansas is not likely to be an annual OU opponent in the Southeastern Conference, and readers still aren’t sure why.
William: “Here is an opinion from a non-graduating former student at Oklahoma State that finds these things interesting even if unimportant. It is less than a four-hour drive from Fayetteville to Norman. Go through Fort Smith and miss the Tulsa traffic and you can be there in around 3:45 hours. Dallas is only an hour closer. Norman to Columbia, Missouri, is a little over seven hours, and Fayetteville to Columbia around five hours. Fayetteville to College Station is around an eight-hour drive and to Austin about nine. Fayetteville to Oxford is about a six-hour drive. In other words, Norman and Fayetteville are each other’s closest neighbor in the conference. It is a rivalry waiting to be created. Play every year and give the winner a little statue of Barry Switzer. Something tells me OU would be fine with Arkansas as a yearly opponent but Arkansas is not. I thought traditional, long-term rivalries, geographic proximity and relative strength of programs were the criteria to be used. Am I wrong?”
Tramel: William is not wrong. That is the criteria. But using that criteria is exactly why OU and Arkansas probably won’t be paired.
Here's why OU-Arkansas is not on the table. Who are the traditional rivals and the competitive aspects of Kentucky football?
Of Mississippi State? Of Texas A&M? Of all 14 SEC schools?
OU fans either don’t know, or they won’t like the answer. Every school has its own needs and desires.
The OU decisions are not made in a vacuum. The SEC is not staying static while merely adding OU and Texas. Everything changes for every school, and the needs of the whole outweigh the needs of each part.
Arkansas in 2012 revived an 80-year rivalry with Texas A&M, and the schools even gave OU-Texas the ultimate compliment by playing many of the games at JerryWorld. It was a massive success, especially for Razorback fans.
Arkansas in 2021 revived the Texas series. Arkansas-Texas was in many ways the OU-Nebraska game of the Southwest Conference. A game that routinely was the defacto conference title game. And while Texas-Arkansas rarely matched OU-Nebraska in national import — the 1969 Big Shootout was a notable example — Texas-Arkansas had the cultural component lacking in OU-Nebraska (but not lacking in OU-Texas).
For competitive reasons, the lower-tier SEC schools will be asked to have just one every-year opponent from the upper-tier. That's going to be Texas, it appears. If the Hogs were to get another, it would be A&M. OU is a distant third, and three top-tier schools is not even a consideration.
The SEC schedule is a puzzle. No school — not even Alabama, it appears — is going to be forced into a connection. Everything must fit. OU-Arkansas, while making sense geographically but not sense anywhere else, does not qualify.
If OU-Arkansas is all that natural of a rivalry, the dozens of administrators who have led those athletic departments in the last century would have scheduled a game somewhere along the line. They have not. OU and Arkansas have met only in bowl games since 1920.
The SEC schedule is a puzzle. OU is but a small piece of that puzzle.
More:Tramel's ScissorTales: Will Alabama's Nick Saban get his way with SEC football scheduling?
The List: Conference tournament Cinderellas
The Big Eight post-season basketball tournament began in 1977. In the 46 Big Eight/Big 12 tournaments, only seven have been won by teams seeded lower than third. Here's the list.
● 1993 Missouri: The Tigers placed seventh in the Big Eight, with a 5-9 record, but caught fire in Kansas City, including double-digit-margin victories over OSU in the quarterfinals and Kansas State in the title game. Mizzou lost to Temple in the first round of the NCAAs.
● 1978 Missouri: The Tigers were sixth-seeded, after tying OSU for sixth place in the conference at 4-10. But Missouri, led by Clay Johnson and Larry Drew, roared to the tournament title before losing to Utah in the NCAAs.
● 2019 Iowa State: The Cyclones placed fifth in the Big 12, at 9-9. But led by Marial Shayok, the Cyclones won the Big 12 Tournament before losing to Ohio State in the NCAAs.
● 1994 Nebraska: The Cornhuskers finished fourth in the Big Eight but ran roughshod through the conference tournament, led by Eric Piatkowski. Alas, Nebraska lost to Pennsylvania in the NCAAs, and the Huskers still don’t have an NCAA Tournament victory.
● 2014 Iowa State: The Cyclones tied for third in the conference but drew the fourth seed. No matter. Led by three elite scorers — Melvin Ejim, DeAndre Kane and Georges Niang — ISU won the tournament and reached the Sweet 16.
● 1991 Missouri: The Tigers finished fourth in the Big Eight at 8-6 but won the tournament. Mizzou, led by Doug Smith and Anthony Peeler, was ineligible for the post-season that year, due to NCAA probation, but was allowed to play in the Big 12 Tournament. Don’t tell OSU coach Mike Boynton.
● 2017 Iowa State: The Cyclones finished in a three-way tie for second in the conference at 12-6 but drew the fourth seed. Iowa State, led by Monte Morris and Deonte Burton, won the tournament, then beat Nevada in the NCAAs before losing to Purdue.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Porter Moser knows retention is critical for OU basketball rebuild
