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OU Basketball: Struggling Oklahoma Gets Historic Visit from No. 17 Kentucky

The Sooners just ended a five-game losing streak by upsetting Mississippi State, but now finish with a daunting four-game stretch.

John E. Hoover

Oklahoma coach Porter Moser and guard Brycen Goodine.
Oklahoma coach Porter Moser and guard Brycen Goodine. / Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
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NORMAN — Just like when Alabama came to the Oklahoma campus last November, this feels like a watershed moment for the Sooners.

Basketball is the sport. Kentucky is the opponent. The bluest of blue bloods walks into Lloyd Noble Center for the first time ever on Wednesday night. Tipoff is 8 p.m., and the game will be carried by SEC Network.

It’s one of those “why OU joined the SEC” events.

“Not mincing words with the guys,” OU coach Porter Moser said Tuesday during a press conference. “It's an NCAA Tournament game. We know the stakes. You got an NCAA Tournament team in Kentucky, one of the best teams in the country, and everything matters.”

Three months ago, Brent Venables’ football team was struggling. At just 5-5 and with the Crimson Tide coming to town for the first time ever, things weren’t good. The odds seemed long that Oklahoma could navigate a home game against No. 7 Alabama (a two-touchdown favorite) followed by a road trip to LSU, and keep their 25-year bowl streak alive.

As it turned out, the Sooners stunned the college football world and trampled Bama with a 24-3 Crimson and Cream stampede that forged a generation of memories for Sooner Nation and sent OU to a bowl game for the 26th year in a row.

Now, Moser has a chance to replicate that and orchestrate a finishing run that can land Oklahoma in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since Lon Kruger was the coach.

Kentucky ranks No. 1 in college basketball history with 2,416 all-time victories (Kansas is No. 2 at 2,412) and No. 1 in winning percentage at .759 (North Carolina is second at .733.) The Wildcats also rank No. 1 all-time with 986 appearances in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

This time, the Wildcats are ranked No. 17 under first-year coach Mark Pope. He came from BYU to replace John Calipari, who stepped down to take over at Arkansas after 15 seasons at the helm in Lexington, a stretch that included a national championship, five Final Fours and 12 NCAA Tournament appearances.

After missing the postseason in 2021 with a 9-16 record, Calipari’s final three squads didn’t make it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

Now Pope’s first UK team is 18-9 overall and 7-7 in SEC play. OU is 17-10 and 4-10.

“I mean credit to him,” Moser said. “With roster spots and NIL, blue blood, all that you can sell with Kentucky, they went out and he got, I mean, look, he got some great players, and he's coaching the heck out of them. So no, it's not surprising me at all. At all. 

“When Mark got that job, you know, people were wondering, ‘Who's going to get it? Who's going to get it?’ When Mark got it, you're like, ‘That makes sense. That makes sense.”

Kentucky will be playing in the state of Oklahoma for the first time ever. UK is 3-0 all-time against the Sooners, winning in 1947 and 1987 in Lexington, then in the Maui Invitational in 2010.

The personal hook in this game for OU fans — and for Moser and the Sooners, no doubt — is the return of Otega Oweh, who started 37 of his 60 games in two seasons in Norman. He averaged 11.4 points per game last season as a sophomore.

So far this year, Oweh had a 26-game streak of double-figure scoring and currently ranks 12th in the SEC with his team-leading 15.7 points per game. 

On Tuesday, Oweh talked with Kentucky media about his return to Norman.

“I’m excited, but I’m just treating it like every other game,” Oweh said. “Another game that we have to win. So I’m looking at it like that.”

“He's had a phenomenal year,” Moser said. “To have that double-figure scoring for as long as he did in this league, phenomenal. … I think a lot of him as a young man, Otega, I think he's a great kid. He's great young man. It's unfortunate the world of this business with that, but it's not going to be weird. We're both competitors. He's going to try to come in and win. We're going to try to win.” 

“It’s a brand new team,” Oweh said. “I know Coach Moser, he’s a big X’s and O’s guy, so he’s going to make sure he does his research. We just have to be ready to fight.”

The Sooners are hoping to continue whatever momentum might have been created from Saturday’s 93-87 upset of Mississippi State at LNC. 

“Not hope. I don't even like that word,” Moser said. “Hope’s an outlook. The strategy is to play the right way.”

It’ll be tough. Amari Williams is a 7-foot numbers machine who leads the nation in total points-assists-rebounds per 40 minutes at 41.2 (11.0 points, 8.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists) and shoots 59 percent from the field. He’s recorded nine double-doubles (seven in SEC play) and even has a triple-double.

Six players, led by Oweh at 15.7, average right at double-figure scoring. 

Kentucky has eight Quad 1 wins this season, which ranks No. 4 nationally.

It’s the first time in OU history that OU has played eight Top 25 opponents in a nine-game span. The Sooners are currently in the projected NCAA Tournament field on ESPN bracket expert Joe Lunardi’s — but are firmly on the bubble.

It’s a tough ask for the Sooners, but Kentucky is just 2-5 in SEC road games this season, having lost three in a row and four of its last five.

“Well, there's no equalizer like confidence when you're going through something,” Moser said. “You know, a win. So it's just feeding on the why. 

“We played the right way (Saturday) and we were resilient. We kept on taking punches from Mississippi State, who I think is a top 15-20 team. But it's amazing what (winning) can do to, you know, change that narrative to ... where we're going — chasing something that's attainable.”

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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