SEC Basketball: Alabama, Auburn leads way-too-early power rankings for 2024-25 season

13. Oklahoma Sooners

Oklahoma had a reasonably successful 2023-24 campaign, recording 20 wins and finding themselves as high as 7th in the AP Top 25 in late December.

However, the Sooners were inconsistent in Big 12 play, ultimately costing Porter Moser’s squad a bid for the 2024 NCAA Tournament. It should be noted that under normal circumstances in a world without the numerous bid stealers we saw in 2024, the Sooners would have (likely) heard their name called on Selection Sunday. But that wasn’t the case.

Now entering their first season in the SEC, Oklahoma will look vastly different, especially in the backcourt. Javian McCollum, the team’s leading scorer, is off to Georgia Tech. Milos Uzan, the Sooners’ “steady” point guard presence, is off to Houston. Otega Oweh, who took one of the more impressive freshman-to-sophomore jumps, is off to Kentucky. Le’Tre Darthhard, Sam Goodwin and Rivaldo Soares have graduated. 

Moser was able to subdue those losses with a sneaky-good transfer portal class, including the likes of Brycen Goodine (Fairfield), Kobe Elvis (Dayton) Jadon Jones (Long Beach State) and Duke Miles (Troy, High Point) to fill the backcourt. Retaining Jalon Moore was monumental, too.

The Sooners have the tools in place to raise some eyebrows but similar to the rest of the schools in the bottom half of the SEC, the pieces need to fall into place seamlessly to move the needle in this jam-packed conference.