Late January Madness: Oklahoma Blew The Doors Off Alabama And Stormed The Court After A Huge, Historic Upset

This Oklahoma-Alabama matchup would traditionally be far more entertaining on the gridiron than the hardwood, but hey! Shout out to the Sooners. They desperately needed something like this to revive any hopes of punching a ticket to the Big Dance, and holy freaking hell did they deliver. What an electric scene in Norman that pretty much no one could've seen coming.

After ripping off eight straight wins to begin conference play, Saturday's SEC/Big 12 Challenge proved too much for the Crimson Tide to handle. Meanwhile, Oklahoma was 2-6 in its eight conference tilts, had lost three in a row, and essentially had no business even competing in this one, much less blowing Bama out of the water.

To hold potential NBA Draft lottery picks in Brandon Miler and Noah Clowney to a combined 7-for-24 shooting is a hell of an achievement. Never mind the fact that the Sooners had plenty in the tank to light it up on the offensive end. I was like, "WAIT A SECOND, IS LON KRUGER BACK OR SOMETHING!?" Because let's be honest. Been a pretty rough start at Oklahoma for Kruger's coaching successor Porter Moser, the mastermind behind the mid-major darling Loyola-Chicago. Talk about a signature win to potentially get shit on the right track.

While Grant Sherfield deserves his flowers for hanging 30 points and six dimes on the Tide, speaking of hanging, there may soon be a poster made after the Sooners' Jalen Hill, who flushed the shit out of this one for two of his 26 points:

So yeah...literally a history-making upset here by Oklahoma. March Madness came early in late January I suppose. Just goes to show you never know what can happen...the whole "That's why they play the game" cliche and so forth. My thing is, I really do wonder if this is a turning point for the Sooners program, or if it's just a flash in the pan and they'll be relegated to NIT afterthought once again. We shall see.

Whatever the case, my hunch is Bama bounces back in a big way amid a relatively soft three-game SEC stretch before consecutive, massive road duels against Auburn and Tennessee around mid-February. Perhaps the letdown they could've suffered prior to those two contests happened against the Sooners. Should be fascinating to see if this loss turns out to be a costly stain on their resume in their bid for a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed or just a rather minor speed bump.

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