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Just four regular season games remain for the Oklahoma Sooners, but the team appears to be at a crossroads.
Though NCAA Tournament experts have continued to project that Porter Moser’s first year in Norman will end in a big to the Big Dance, a late-season injury has shaken things up inside the program.
Senior Elijah Harkless sustained an injury during OU’s 80-78 overtime loss to the No. 20-ranked Texas Longhorns last Tuesday, an injury nobody really knew about until the days after the contest.
“(Harkless) didn’t even know it,” Moser said during a Zoom press conference on Monday. “He said something after the game that he felt some discomfort… but he didn’t say anything to anyone during the course of the game. We had no idea.
“… It wasn’t until the next day I was told that, yep, E.J. came in, and we’re going to give him an X-Ray. Those were negative. Then the next day was a precautionary MRI, and they did it and that’s when. It wasn’t any one thing.”
In their first contest without Harkless, the Sooners (14-13 overall, 4-10 in Big 12 play) fell flat in Ames on Saturday, falling 75-54 to the Iowa State Cyclones.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect about the loss was OU’s defensive performance, as Moser’s team allowed the Cyclones to shoot 67.3 percent from the field.
After the game, Moser said he and the coaching staff would have to head back to the drawing board, as they’ll need to find some different lineups that will allow the Sooners to do a much better job guarding on-ball by tournament time.
“Normally Jalen Hill, Jordan Goldwire and Elijah are three really good guys at guarding the ball,” Moser said immediately after the loss. “And when we switch a lot, it doesn’t really matter.
"Then you take one less out of there and you make a sub, you have three or four guys who aren’t good at guarding the dribble at one time.”
Unfortunately for the Sooners, time is not on their side.
Oklahoma will have to come up with some adjustments on the fly as it’s a quick turnaround to Tuesday’s trip to Lubbock to square off against the No. 9 Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Umoja Gibson and the Sooners got the best of the Red Raiders in the first meeting between the two teams two weeks ago, but it’ll take a team effort to pull off the shocking season sweep in Lubbock.
Moser said it has been difficult balancing running the team through live reps in practice versus keeping them fresh, but he hopes the coaching staff has found the right balance to yield results on the court.
“The turnaround's quick, no question about it,” Moser said on Monday. “We spent a lot of time (at the facility) yesterday. We watched a lot of film with the guys. We walked through, it's hard to go live because with this many bodies you've got to stay fresh.”
The spotlight will now fall on some of the younger members of the team, true freshmen Bijan Cortes, C.J. Noland and Alston Mason in particular, as the members of the bench unit who will have to step up and play like veterans down the stretch.
“A lot of it is having to try to get these three freshman a race to maturity,” Moser said. “We have four games left. These three have got to play valuable minutes for us.
“… They've all had opportunities. It's not like C.J. and Bijan especially haven't had minutes throughout the year. They've played throughout the year. We just got to get them trying to play at a higher level and probably more minutes.”
Cortes made the biggest splash of the three freshman for his performances in a loss at Baylor and Oklahoma’s comeback victory against Iowa State at home, and he’ll have to find those high levels of consistency in the remaining games to help push OU into the NCAA Tournament.
Averaging 11.8 minutes per game this year, Cortes has put up 2.1 points, 1.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists a contest for the Sooners. Noland has provided a slightly better scoring pop for OU, contributing 4.2 points, 1.4 boards and 0.7 assists per game himself.
The real wild card could be Mason, as the freshman guard wasn’t able to get on the floor for most of Big 12 play. Forced into action now, he’ll have the opportunity to improve on his 1.3 points, 0.5 rebounds and 0.2 assists across an average of 6.5 minutes per game.
Thankfully for the Sooners, Harkless will be on the bench for a majority of the remaining games, helping guide the trio along from the sidelines.
“Our bench right now consists of (Ethan Chargois) and every guard that comes off the bench right now is a true freshman,” Moser said. “We don’t have any sub that isn’t a true freshman. No one in our league or the Power 5 league schools that are doing that.
“It's important that (Harkless is) on the bench talking to them, staying engaged. At media timeouts, bringing some energy.”
But Harkless won’t make the trip to Lubbock on Tuesday night, as he is scheduled to have his season-ending knee surgery, Moser said.
The freshman will have to go it alone, and the Sooners need their contributions most right now for one final push headed into March.
Oklahoma’s bench will get their chance to help lift the Sooners on Tuesday night, as tip-off between OU and Texas Tech is scheduled for 7 p.m. on ESPN+.
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