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Oklahoma's NCAA Tournament hopes are on life support after losing to East Texas A&M.
The Oklahoma basketball team fell to East Texas A&M in the season opener. The loss all but seals the Sooners’ postseason fate.
OU has effectively been eliminated from the NCAA Tournament. Recent research suggests that there’s little room for recovery after upsets of this proportion.
Over the last three seasons, just four schools from major conferences have made the Big Dance with a Quad 4 loss. Those leagues include the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, and SEC. No more than two have made March Madness fields in four of the last five years. None made the bracket in 2024.
The odds are now against the Sooners. Last year, a total of 39 teams from those major conferences made the tournament field. Only 0.05% had a Q4 defeat.
Oklahoma lost a bad basketball game.
East Texas A&M entered as the 294th-rated team in KenPom. Given strengths of schedule, it will likely go down as a Quad 4 loss for the Sooners.
Oklahoma entered at No. 33 in the KenPom ratings. It has since fallen to 54th.
The Sooners came in as a near 30-point favorite. East Texas A&M was picked to finish dead last in the Southland Conference in the preseason after finishing 11-21 last year. The loss was the second largest in terms of the spread over the last three decades.
Making the optics even worse, Oklahoma paid the Lions to come to Norman.
Oklahoma loses a buy game to East Texas A&M.
The epitome of brutality.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) November 3, 2026
Details of that payment are not public. Judging on other buy games around the conference, it can be assumed the payout was in the range of six figures.
Porter Moser was embarrassed.
The Oklahoma basketball coach spoke on the loss after the fact. He immediately apologized to fans for the failure.
The game got off to an ominous start for the Sooners, who fell behind by double digits in the first half. The Lions’ lead grew to as many as 16 points before Oklahoma made a second half run.
OU tied the game at 58 with less than five minutes left. From there, they were outscored 10-6.
Oklahoma missed 15 free throws and had 15 turnovers. They outrebounded East Texas A&M 34-33 and missed 75% of their three-point attempts.
Now, elimination is not set in stone. I’m being a bit dramatic to stress the impact of the result. Teams have overcome bad non-conference losses in the past to make the field. They, however, are few and far between. It’s going to be an uphill battle.
The Sooners were playing without guard Xzayvier Brown, which could impact potential NCAA Tournament outlook should the team show improvement. Still, the Q4 loss could weigh heavily on Selection Sunday if Oklahoma is on the bubble.
Moser entered the season squarely on the hot seat after missing his fourth Big Dance in five seasons. Year 6 couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.