OU men's basketball suffers stunning upset loss to East Texas A&M in season opener

NORMAN — Porter Moser was fuming inside the Lloyd Noble Center interview room postgame.

His Oklahoma Sooners had just fallen to East Texas A&M 68-64 — the second-largest Division I upset by point spread in the last 30 years. OU closed as a 28.5 point favorite and had won 30 consecutive home games entering Monday.

“Before we can take any questions,” Moser said to begin his press conference, “the only thing I know what to do is apologize to the fan base and get better. But I apologize to every single person that came in.”

The Sooners missed 15 free throws and turned the ball over 15 times in the loss. OU dropped from 29th in KenPom to 54th following the defeat.

The Lions entered the contest ranked 298th in KenPom’s preseason ratings. East Texas A&M finished 11-21 last season.

More: OU basketball coach Porter Moser finally got the resources, but now comes the hard part

“I apologize to every single person that came in.”
Here’s #Sooners coach Porter Moser’s opening statement following the East Texas A&M loss. pic.twitter.com/sdKww1HGKD

— Colton Sulley (@colton_sulley) November 3, 2026

While the Sooners were without point guard Xzayvier Brown, Moser didn’t try to rationalize the offensive struggles.

“You’d hope not,” Moser said when asked if he expected the offense to slide as much as it did without Brown. “I don’t want anybody to think I’m sitting here making excuses.”

Returning forward Derrion Reid had a chance to tie the game with seconds left but his midrange shot rimmed out. He missed five free throws and stayed afterward to get some extra reps in from the line.

Reid finished with 14 points while Texas A&M transfer Pop Isaacs led OU with 15.

“That's just us thing, honestly,” Reid said of the free throw struggles. “We're gonna come in in the morning. We're gonna get some free throws up. Some of us are gonna get free throws up right now. It's nothing mental. It's just us. We just gotta step to the line with confidence.”

Junior Dayton Forsythe got the start in place of Brown.

The Dale native, who was cleared from a concussion two days ago, finished with seven points on 3 of 10 shooting. He shot 1 for 7 from the line.

“I'm sorry for that performance by us,” said Forsythe, who grew up an OU fan. “That's obviously not up to our standard, coach's standard, the fan standard and it shouldn't be. It wasn't good enough and we're gonna get it fixed.”

Moser was firmly on the hot seat less than eight months ago after falling to Arkansas in the SEC Tournament and ultimately missing the NCAA Tournament. Athletic director Roger Denny elected to give OU’s coach more resources and another shot to make things right.

He’s off to a historically bad start after one of the worst losses in Sooners basketball history. Prior to Monday, OU had won 22 of its past 23 season openers.

Next, OU hosts Mississippi Valley State at 7 p.m. Friday at McCasland Field House.

Moser vowed the product will look different.

“How we move forward defines us,” Moser said. “There's no running away from this loss. And again, I don't want to say some adjectives about the loss because I don't want to take away from East Texas A&M.

“But we've got to own it and I'm going to own it.”

Colton Sulley covers the Oklahoma Sooners for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Colton? He can be reached at csulley@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @colton_sulley. Support Colton's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing adigital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU men's basketball suffers stunning upset loss to East Texas A&M in season opener