The Sooners were finally unveiled in the final region of the 2025 NCAA Tournament field on Sunday, marking the first time OU has qualified for the Big Dance under Moser. 

Each time a region was revealed in full and CBS went to commercial, you could feel the room sigh. 

“That was a cruel joke waiting until the last bracket,” Moser said with a relieved smile on Sunday. “You just sat there and you put your thoughts right back into last year, where you were waiting for those brackets to be revealed.”

Moser was joined by his team, his assistants, Oklahoma administrators and family at the Lloyd Noble Center on Sunday. 

Each SEC team that popped up, first Texas, then Georgia in an 8-9 game, all were met with smiles. It meant the Sooners should be dancing, but finishing in the first four out of the tournament in two of your first three years mean nothing is guaranteed. 

When OU was finally shown on screen, as a 9-seed matched up with two-time defending champs UConn, Moser shot out of his chair and applauded, and then shortly embraced his son and seniors Jalon Moore and Sam Godwin. 

“Jalon’s leg was like bouncing,” Moser said. “It was the same thing. I joked the two of us, we went this is a cruel joke. We wanted to be right out of the gate, out of the way.”

For Moser, this year’s trip to the NCAA Tournament is a year in the making. 

He thought his team was in a year ago, before they were the last team left waiting after conference tournament carnage cost OU a bid. 

“I looked back,” Moser said. “I was sharing it with some of the guys that were here and some of the coaches, 365 days ago… I want to thank our savior lord Jesus Christ for his faith. I think the thing with that is you go through life and the disappointment you had, and when you have faith in your life and you have people in your life, you can come through so much. 

“And this year, having to lose people in the portal and rebuild the team back up and then implement your system with a whole new team, start out 13-0 and all of a sudden go 0-4 and have the trials and tribulations and the ups and downs that we had, to have the resiliency to come on top to have this day, man.”

Moore was relieved as well. 

Any stress on his face was quickly replaced by joy. He went to embrace all of his teammates before the Sooners broke out in song, serenading guard Kobe Elvis with “Happy Birthday” before the team broke the huddle. 

“It’s amazing,” Moore said. “A special moment that we had together as a team. And for us to be able to get into this tournament and about to make some noise in it, special moment for the team. Special moment for the guys.”

Moser, who took Loyola Chicago to the Final Four and the Sweet 16 in his previous two trips as a head coach to the NCAA Tournament, knows how fast this turnaround will be to prepare for the Huskies. 

“There’s a plan, and I told the guys this morning there’s a definite process I go through in this thing,” Moser said. “Like today, we went over some situations, we went over a couple things we might not do, that we haven’t practiced on, but it’s Friday. We got a week to prepare for them, and they got a week to prepare for us, but yeah, I think that this week will be calculated.”

But for now, Moser is proud of the grit his team showed to make it to the tournament. 

“The thing that I can say is unequivocally, these players and these coaches never stopped believing in each other,” Moser said. “… We’ve come out on this end, and this will be something they carry the rest of their lives, that, man, remember we put ourselves in some of those spots, but the path we chose.

“… The path they chose was to keep believing, and I’m happy for them that they have this day, but like I told them, we’re not done. We’re not done. This isn’t our destination. This is what’s part of our journey, to get into this tournament. Now, let’s go compete.”