The tough case for Oklahoma (NCAA Basketball)

Undoubtedly, this is THE time of year to be a college basketball fan. Selection Sunday is only six days away, the conference tournaments are in full swing and it has reached do or die time for the year’s bubble teams.

But with so much to debate, one question may be harder to answer than any other: who should be the NCAA tournament’s fourth number one seed?

Three are already locked up. Barring disaster in the Big East tournament, Pitt should not only secure a number one seed but the overall number one as well.

Meanwhile, Connecticut and North Carolina, despite not particularly dominant seasons, also appear to have number one seeds on lockdown.

But from there, things get messy.

Louisville? Their candidacy ends before it even begins since the selection committee would never anoint three number ones from the same conference.

Michigan State? The 35-point walloping they suffered at the hands of North Carolina in December, in Detroit, precludes them.

Duke? The same Duke that went 2-4 vs. ranked ACC teams? As much as the NCAA would love to set up a potential Duke-UNC Final Four or championship game, the Dukies chances of earning a number one seed are none-to-none.

That leaves Oklahoma and Memphis.

As of today, Memphis would seem the most obvious choice. The defending NCAA runners-up are once again running roughshod over the hapless Conference USA.

And despite his conference’s non-elite status, John Calipari has proven that his Memphis teams come to the dance ready to play, and won’t get bounced out by a middle-tier Big 10 or Pac 10 team in the second round.

But what if the selection committee decides to look past Memphis’ gaudy record and recent pedigree and fixate on the fact that the Tigers have beaten only one tournament-lock all season (Gonzaga)?

Enter Oklahoma, a justifiable but no less troublesome choice for that fourth number one.

Making the case for Oklahoma as a number one seed is a lot like trying to convict someone of a serious crime based solely on circumstantial evidence.

We’ve seen the Sooners play, and we know that Blake Griffin is probably the best player in the country, but even after 31 games, we don’t know who the real Oklahoma is.

And it’s just not because Griffin missed two of their three biggest games, though that is a big part of it.

More than likely, had Griffin played against Texas and Kansas, the Sooners would have at minimum split, and likely swept.

It took everything the Longhorns had to knock the Griffin-less Sooners out at home, while Kansas struggled to put them away in Norman.

So for seeding and ranking purposes, two of OU’s biggest games are basically non-factors when it comes to deciding their fate.

In reality, the most troublesome part of Oklahoma’s candidacy has been their tendency to never really dominate, even with Griffin.

All year, the Sooners struggled to put away mediocre teams like Texas Tech, Colorado, and Gardner Webb, and let midlevel teams like Nebraska, USC and Davidson hang with them for far too long.

Still, will it be possible, or even logical, for the selection committee to look past a team that has the best player in the country and has lost at full-strength only twice?

Should Memphis stroll through the Conference USA tournament the answer is likely yes.

But if the Tigers suffer any sort of a let up–basically anything short of winning the championship game by 20 points–the committee should look long and hard at the Sooners, and guide themselves by that pesky notion of potential instead of credential.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff