First game: No. 8 TCU (Wednesday, 6 p.m.)
Prediction: Wins one game, loses to No. 1 Kansas in quarterfinals.
The 2016-2017 version of Oklahoma men’s basketball isn’t near the version we saw just 365 days ago when Buddy Hield, Isaiah Cousins and Ryan Spangler were the key players, leading this team to a Final Four appearance.
There’s a new influx of talent. Young talent, but talent. When there are new, young, additions to the core of any team, you’ll typically see them go through some growing pains as result. That’s exactly what happened with the Sooners this season as they’ve gone (11-19) (5-13) on the season, but won two of their final three games of the season.
The Sooner will enter the Big 12 tournament as the No. 9 team in the conference and will play the No. 8 TCU Horned Frogs on Thursday, a team they recently beat to cap off the regular season.
With Kameron McGusty and Kristian Doolittle finally coming into their own, taking on bigger roles, and playing the way they need to play to surprise a few Big 12 teams, I’m convinced they wish the season could restart today because so many of their games came so close.McGusty and Doolittle had a great outing against TCU last Saturday to end the season with McGusty leading all scorers with 22 points and Doolittle recording a double-double with 19 points and 13 rebounds.
A Big 12 Tournament win may be out of the question for the Sooners, but a simple post-season win would give these young Sooners a little more confidence than they’ve had all season. It’s a good thing they are playing a TCU team that isn’t much better than them.