In the month of March, every game is crucial for a team with a resume that looks like the one that the Oklahoma Sooners currently have. The Sooners are the epitome of an NCAA Tournament bubble team, existing somewhere between the 9-line and the first four out in every Bracketology update for a solid two months now after an impressive 13-0 start to the season was able to build Porter Moser’s squad at least a little room for error.
On Wednesday night, Oklahoma welcomed Missouri to Norman for their penultimate regular season game… one that gave the Sooners another chance to strengthen their NCAA Tournament resume. Not only did the Sooners come away with a 96-84 win at the Lloyd Noble Center, but star freshman Jeremiah Fears, who scored 31 points and dished out 5 assists against the 15th-ranked Tigers, proved once again that he’s capable of carrying Oklahoma against some of the best competition in the country, just as Atlanta Hawks star/former Oklahoma Sooner Trae Young did just a few years back.
Former ESPN writer Jared Berson noted after the game that Jeremiah Fears joins Trae Young as the only Division I freshmen over the last fifteen years who have had a pair of games with at least 30 points and 4 assists in wins over teams ranked in the AP Top 25.
Fears’ first such performance of the season came back in December when he finished with 30 points, 4 assists and the game-winning 4-point play against the Michigan Wolverines. Fears has also had a 27 point, 10 assist gem against Mississippi State just two weeks ago, a stat-sheet filling 21 point, 6 rebound, 4 assist, 3 steals performance versus Vanderbilt, and an impressive 26-5-5 game against Arizona in the Battle 4 Atlantis semifinals. This is a long way of saying that Fears is one of the best freshmen in the best conference in the country.
“They did a great job just trusting me throughout the whole night,” Fears said after the 12-point win over Missouri, per Tom Green of 247Sports. “Coach ran a lot of sets for a lot of us, and we just did a great job of trusting each other throughout the whole night.”
Fears and the Sooners will have one more regular season opportunity to build up their NCAA Tournament resume this Saturday when Oklahoma heads to Austin to take on the Texas Longhorns and their impressive freshman Tre Johnson.
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