Moser signs three in whirlwind period

One of the first words you think of for Oklahoma basketball coach Porter Moser is his non-stop energy. It epitomized him at Loyola and hasn’t slowed down at all in his initial seven months in Norman.

And he had to have an abundance of it in trying to piece together a 2022 recruiting class where the Sooners were just always playing catch-up.

He had to assemble a staff and find nine pieces for the 2021 roster before Moser could even begin to think about the 2022 class.

It all worked out as OU announced the signings of guards Otega Oweh, Milos Uzan and Benny Schroeder on Wednesday afternoon.

Moser and his staff went coast-to-coast in searching for the top names, either watching them in person or having them visit the campus during June and July and on and on.

But entering October, the Sooners still had a goose egg in the commitment department until Oweh changed that all up.

“Recruiting is about persistence and the long game,” Moser said. “Obviously, you get these guys on campus and you are recruiting guys. You really get to know them on their official visits. But it is nerve-wracking because recruiting is so much the lifeblood of your program. It’s about building the talent-base and building the right guys. It takes time to do that.

“Otega was the first one. Otega said he was coming and believed in everything that we were doing. He loved the detail of our program. He loved how we guarded, how we pushed it, how we played four-out. He also liked, he wants to be taught, he wants to be good, he likes the skill development of our program. That was a big thing.

“It meant a lot when he was the first to step up and say he wanted to be a Sooner.”

Uzan would follow later in the month, and Schroeder, a teenager from Germany, was the surprise of the class when he made his call.

From looking like a class that would have to rely solely on the transfer portal to earning the signature of three major recruits, it was a job well done by Moser and his staff. They worked the tireless hours, and it paid off.

What’s next?

That’s always the question that comes up. Three are in, what now? It’s no longer something you can answer in November and April. It’s something you have to monitor the entire way.

Clearly, the transfer portal is going to play a huge role. For what positions? A lot of that is going to be about how things work themselves out during the course of the season.

“You do have to always have your pulse,” Moser said. “You can’t just, all the sudden in this day and age and say I just lost three, I have to start recruiting in April. I think you always have to be watching. You always have to be evaluating. You have to have your pulse on it 24/7. It’s hard to know exactly how many we want to sign.

“I think as we go through this year, we will start to know some of our needs. We’ll start to see some guys step up. We’ll see some things where we might have a need in certain areas.”

Pulse is the word. As the Sooners get deeper into the season, it’s going to become evident what areas the staff is going to need to hit to make the 2021-22 roster as strong as possible.

Kudos to the assistants

It’s not just Moser, and Moser absolutely wanted to let that be known. That assembled staff had zero ties to OU, but Emanuel Dildy (Northwestern), KT Turner (Texas) and David Patrick (Arkansas) made it work.

There is no way OU could have achieved such a strong class without those guys putting the time to really figure out who would be the best fit for the program, a program they themselves were still trying to get to know.

“Huge challenge. Because like right now, we’re recruiting heavily the Class of ’23 and ’24 and we’re in November ’21. So imagine we got the job in April of ’21 and we had to sign nine for that. So our first focus was to put the staff together and then signing nine. So much of our energy was into doing that.

“Then we’re playing catch-up for the Class of 2022. I mean some of those kids we recruited had been recruited for two years. We were playing catch-up trying to recruit them and getting them here and selling them to Oklahoma.”

They caught up, built the relationships and got their guys.

Proof vs. idea?

This was the question during August and September. How could Moser recruit elite recruits to the Sooners without the proof showing up on the floor?

Moser and staff were selling a concept, an idea of what they wanted. Much like Alex Grinch back in the day about defensive recruiting, same scenario here.

It’s a belief that things are going to work out well, just like it did at Loyola.

“It’s difficult, but not as difficult because it’s happened here at Oklahoma,” Moser said. “We’ve paralleled it. Our coaching staffs at Loyola, we were able to do it there recruiting a certain way, developing a certain way, having this atmosphere of where it’s a family atmosphere. Our culture was really important to us, and we did it there. So we showed that.

“And then we showed it, this is a university where you can have all the resources. We’re at a level where you’re gonna play some of the top tournaments in the country, you’re gonna play some of the top teams in the country, in the top venues. And they’ve done it multiple times. So we just paralleled it.”

Quotables

“I love Otega's work ethic, character and that he is a proven winner," said Moser. "He uses his athleticism in the transition game and plays with an edge. He comes from a great high school program at Blair Academy and led his EYBL team to the EYBL circuit championship. Love the length he brings to the court and believe he will be to be a great two-way player for us."

“Milos is a long and athletic point guard that makes everyone around him better," Moser said. "He is a coach's son with an extremely high basketball IQ. He uses his length off ball screens and is a great facilitatory with his court vision. He led his AAU team to the adidas circuit championship and plays for a great high school program.”

“Benny is a highly-competitive, athletic guard that gives us great size," stated Moser. "He brings a wealth of experience playing against high-level competition for many years in Europe. He is a three-level scorer, who can get to the rim, has a midrange shot and a 3-point game. He is also a playmaker and will use his athletic ability in transition.”