March 12, 2026, 11:02 p.m. CT
The Oklahoma men’s basketball team’s hopes for an NCAA Tournament berth remain very much alive.
The 11th-seeded Sooners rolled past No. 6 Texas A&M in the second round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament late Thursday night, 83-63. Oklahoma will play No. 3 Arkansas on Friday at 8:30 p.m. CT. OU likely needs a win in that game in order to stay on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
They looked cooked at the beginning of February as they lost nine straight games in SEC play. But the Sooners lost just two more games the rest of the way and closed the season on a four-game winning streak before beating South Carolina in the first round of the conference tournament on Wednesday.
They beat the Aggies much in the same way they did the Gamecocks: Nijel Pack went off.
The Sooners’ guard scored 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting with four 3-pointers to lead the way for the Sooners. He was joined in double figures by Xzayvier Brown (16 points), Tae Davis (14) and Derrion Reid (15). Oklahoma led by as many as 24 points and took a 22-point lead, 49-27, into halftime.
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Pack was hit in the face with 5:46 left in the game, sending the officials to the monitor to check for a flagrant foul. One was called for “head-to-head contact” as it appeared the back of Marcus Hill’s head hit Pack in the nose as the OU guard was defending.
OU limited Texas A&M to 37% from the field and scored 18 second-chance points to the Aggies’ 1.
As of 8 p.m. Thursday night, Oklahoma was listed among Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology for ESPN as one of the “First Four Teams Out” of the NCAA Tournament. The Sooners lost to Arkansas by four points in their regular-season meeting Jan. 27. A win over the Razorbacks could be enough to lift Oklahoma in March Madness, while a loss would leave the Sooners on the bubble for Selection Sunday.
