OU is ranked No. 9 in the country

Can No. 9 Oklahoma compete for the national championship?

In a year when traditional powers like Kentucky, Duke and to some extent Kansas are not hitting on all cylinders, the Sooners are making a case that they could challenge to show up in the Final Four.

OU, alone in second place in the Big 12, was scheduled to play Texas Tuesday night in Austin.

Oklahoma battled for a road victory Saturday, topping No. 14 West Virginia, 91-90, in double overtime for a series sweep of the Mountaineers.

This was the seventh win for Oklahoma in their last eight games and five of those wins were against teams ranked in the Top 15 in the nation. It was such an impressive stretch that some are saying that OU coach Lon Kruger is the top candidate for national coach of the year.

And the NCAA released their early top 16 seed for March Madness and Oklahoma was No. 12 – which means a No. 3 seed in the tournament if things stay the same.

The top seeds were Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan, Ohio State, Illnois, Villanova, Alabama, Houston, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas Tech, Texas and Missouri.

OU is 4-3 against that top 16. The Sooner are 2-0 versus West Virginia, 1-0 against Texas, 1- against Alabama, 0-1 against Baylor and 0-2 against Texas Tech.

Kruger was very pleased with the win over West Virginia.

“Obviously just a heck of a ball game,” Kruger said. “There wasn’t much of a margin either way throughout, and I thought guys on both teams were fighting like crazy and making big time plays, big time stops. We had a little trouble getting rebounds there the latter part of the game and overtime. But overall just really proud for our guys, happy for our guys.”

OU guard Austin Reaves paced the Sooners with 28 points, including four crucial points in the second overtime. Umoja Gibson poured ion 21 points for the Sooners (13-5, 8-4 Big 12).

“Austin was terrific,” Kruger said. “Making plays off the dribble, getting to the free-throw line, drive-and-kicking for others, got a couple of huge rebounds … huge, huge game for Austin.”

Gibson was a tough cover for the Mountaineers.

Yeah, he’s been great for a long time,” Kruger said. “I mean, he’s played well. He’s consistently probably a guy that’s put up good numbers every night. He works hard defensively. He’s terrific in preparation for games. He made big buckets today. You know, again, Moj has done that for us.”

Derek Culver had his 10th double-double of the season with a career-high 29 points and 14 rebounds for the Mountaineers (14-6, 7-4). He had averaged 6.5 points in six previous games against the Sooners.

“Culver’s a tough matchup,” Kruger said. “He’s so physical.”

Missed free throws hurt the Mountaineers. OU is one of the best free throw shooting teams in the Big 12.

“I have always found that when you are a pretty good free throw shooting team, which we have been, and you go 11 for 21 from the free throw line, a lot of that is concentration,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “And it’s repetition. We didn’t have that. When you fumble balls, that’s concentration. We had to fumble 20 balls. I can’t say we are reading our press clippings because we don’t have a paper. We have play with an edge and we didn’t.”

Huggins said his team didn’t practice well and was tired after a 4:30 a.m. return from an 82-71 win at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas.

West Virginia was scheduled to host No. 2 Baylor last Monday and then travel to play at Baylor on Thursday but both games have been postponed because of coronavirus protocols at Baylor. The Mountaineers are scheduled to play at Texas in Austin Saturday.

“The bottom line is we couldn’t guard them,” Huggins said. “We couldn’t keep them out of the lane all day and it was a simple ball screen. We tried to switch it. We tried to double it and we couldn’t stay in front of them.”