Oklahoma basketball: Sooners will face Alabama in Big 12/SEC Challenge
By Chip Rouse
The 2020-21 men’s Oklahoma basketball schedule is still in the formative stage, but the Sooners now know about one game on the schedule.
Oklahoma will host Alabama in the eighth annual Big 12/SEC Basketball Challenge. The game is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 30 at the Lloyd Noble Center.
The Sooners are 5-2 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge series, with wins over LSU, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and former Big 12 foes Missouri and Texas A&M.
One of the Oklahoma’s two losses in the annual series was to Alabama, 80-73, in Tuscaloosa in 2018. Two future NBA stars were featured in that game: Trae Young of OU and Collin Sexton of Alabama. Young scored 17 points and had eight assists for the Sooners in that game, while Sexton led the Crimson Tide with 18 points.
The Sooners are 5-3 in the all-time series with Alabama.
OU won over Mississippi State last season, defeating the Bulldogs 63-62 in Oklahoma City.
Sooner head coach Lon Kruger owns a 13-9 lifetime mark against current SEC teams and has an 11-5 record against teams that were affiliated with the SEC at the time the game was played. Kruger was head coach at Florida, a current SEC school, for six seasons from 1990 to 1996.
All games in the interconference challenge will be played on the same day. This is the sixth year that all 10 games are being played in one day. Click here to see the schedule and team assignments for the 2020-21 Big 12/SEC Challenge.
The Big 12 is 4-1-2 against the SEC in the seven previous years of the Challenge.
Oklahoma finished last season with a 19-12 overall record and 9-9 and in third place in the conference standings. The Sooners return 70 percent of their scoring production from a year ago behind seniors Brady Manek (14.6 points) and Austin Reaves (14.7).