Jordan Woodard: 'The Big 12 Is Big-Time Basketball; We Need to Be Ready'

Senior team leader Jordan Woodard did his best to keep Oklahoma a game that the Sooners had led for all but six of the 45 minutes in the game before falling to Memphis in overtime on Saturday.

Woodard drained a three-point shot with 0.4 seconds showing on the game clock to knot the game at 84 and send it into an extra five-minute session.

In the overtime, the OU senior guard from nearby Edmond, Oka., hit another three-pointer plus a layup to account for the Sooners first five points in OT, but it was not enough to prevent Oklahoma from dropping yet another contest in which it had led by double digits in the second half.

Woodard’s two field goals in the overtime were all the Sooners could muster in the overtime session, along with five free throws. OU made two of nine field-goal tries in OT, which all but sealed their fate.

Woodard knows as well as anybody that the Sooners are going to have to play much better, and very quickly, if they want to be competitive in the rugged Big 12, which currently sits third in the RPI conference rankings for basketball.

“It’s a new year, so it comes with the results we put in,” the Sooner senior floor leader said on Saturday. “We’ve got to get back to putting in more work. It’s tough, but the Big 12 is coming. It’s big-time basketball; we need to be ready.”

Ten days from now, the Big 12 season gets going for the Sooners when they host No. 4-ranked Baylor. That game will be followed by games at TCU, at Kansas State and back home to face the Big 12’s best in the Kansas Jayhawks.

No easy beginnings for a team that is definitely still a work in progress.