The Oklahoma men’s basketball team will travel to Tuscaloosa, Ala., next season to play Alabama in the fifth annual Big 12/SEC Basketball Challenge.
The game is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 27, the same day that all 10 contests between the two conferences are scheduled to be played. This will be the third year that all games in the inter-conference challenge will be played on the same day.
The Sooners and Crimson Tide have met seven times previously on the hardwood, with Oklahoma holding a 5-2 advantage in the series. The most recent matchup was four years ago, in 2013-14. The Sooners won that game, played on a neutral floor at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, 82-73.
This will be the third time Oklahoma has played Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The two teams split the two previous games.
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Alabama was 19-15 overall in 2016-17 and finished in sixth place in the Southeastern Conference with a 10-8 record.
Both the Sooners and the Crimson Tide are ranked in FoxSports.com’s “Way-too-Early Top 25” for 2017-18. Alabama is at No. 17 in that poll, and the Sooners are at 23.
That represents a marked improvement that is expected from next season’s Oklahoma team after going 11-20 last season. The Sooners, as well as the pollsters, are banking on the added year of experience from OU’s top-heavy contingent of freshmen and sophomores from last season, plus the addition of the No. 2 point guard in the 2017 national recruiting class and a top-25 Sooner recruiting class.
Oklahoma lost last season in a blowout at home to Florida. That was the first Sooner loss in the Big 12/SEC Challenge after three consecutive wins over, Texas A&M, Missouri and LSU.
The Big 12 has won the overall trophy in three of the four years the challenge has been held and is 25-15, a .625 winning percentage, in all games. The two leagues split the 10 games last season.
The complete Big 12/SEC Challenge schedule for the 2017-18 season (each conference will host five games):
Baylor at Florida
Tennessee at Iowa State
Texas A&M at Kansas
Georgia at Kansas State
Oklahoma at Alabama
Oklahoma State at Arkansas
TCU at Vanderbilt
Mississippi at Texas
Texas Tech at South Carolina
Kentucky at West Virginia