After struggling through a 1-8 January and nine consecutive losses, Oklahoma men's basketball has rebounded with back-to-back wins and goes for a hat trick on Wednesday on the road against the Tennessee Volunteers.
As good as the Sooners (13-12, 3-9) have played in their past two games, they're probably going to have to be all that and more in going up against the SEC's best defensive team in one of the country's most intimidating road environments in 21,678-seat Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville. Tennessee's 13-1 record at home this season reflects that difficulty.
Over the past five seasons, Tennessee's .924 home winning percentage (73-6) is the fifth-best in Division-I basketball. The Volunteers' only home loss this season was by two points, 80-78, to Kentucky in mid-January.
While Oklahoma goes to Knoxville riding the momentum of a two-game winning streak with back-to-back victories, at Vanderbilt two weeks ago and at home at Lloyd Noble Center over Georgia on Saturday, the Volunteers (18-7, 8-4) have won seven of their last eight games entering Wednesday night's game.
This will be just the third meeting all-time between the two schools in basketball. Oklahoma is 0-2 against Tennessee on the hardwood. The Volunteers prevailed last season in Norman, 70-52, in the Sooners' first season in the SEC. Before that, Oklahoma and Tennessee had not played each other in over five decades. That inaugural game, won by the Vols 55-49, was played in Knoxville in 1968 at Stokely Athletics Center, which was where Tennessee played basketball before moving into its current facility in 1987.
Wednesday's game between Oklahoma and Tennessee will tip off at 6 p.m. CT and will be televised on ESPN2. Matt Schumacher will do the play-by-play with Richard Hendrix providing analysis.
What to know about Tennessee
The Volunteers average 81.0 points a game, but they lead the SEC holding opponents to just 69.3 a game. They also lead the SEC in field-goal percentage defense and three-point defense while limiting opponents to 40.4 shooting overall and 29.9% from three-point range.
Tennessee's two primary scoring threats are senior guard Ja'Kobi Gillespie, who averages a team-best 18.2 points a game, and 6-foot-10 freshman Nate Ament, averaging 17.7 along with 6.4 rebounds per game. The Volunteers are a very good rebounding team, second to Florida in both combined rebounds and offensive boards, which helps boost the Tennessee offense and affords more scoring opportunities than the Vols' opponents. Tennessee has pulled down double-digit offensive rebounds in all but one of its 25 games this season.
In 18 of Tennessee's 25 games this season, the Volunteers have held leads of 14-plus points, and 23-plus in 13 games. What this signals is that teams cannot afford to fall too far behind when playing Tennessee.
Head coach Rick Barnes has been at Tennessee 11 seasons. He was at Texas (1998-2015) before that and played Oklahoma 40 times while there, going 19-21 overall against the Sooners. In the 11 seasons he has been the Volunteers' head coach, Tennessee is 212-24 when it shoots a higher percentage than its opponent and 17-1 when that is the case this season.
What to know about Oklahoma
Oklahoma's top four scorers this season are all transfers and in their first year at Oklahoma: Xzayvier Brown (16.1 per game), Nijel Pack (16.0), Tae Davis (13.0) and Derrion Reid (11.5).
The Sooners need a bigger contribution from their bench. OU reserves accounted for a season-high 44 points in Saturday's 16-point win over Georgia. Oklahoma is averaging 27.0 bench points in its three SEC wins, but just 13.2 in its nine conference losses.
OU has led for 20-plus minutes in five of its last eight games, but has just a 2-3 record in those five games, underscoring the team's season-long problem -- and particularly in conference play -- of not being able to close out games.
During the Sooners' two-game winning streak, they led by double digits for a combined 40:32 of the 80 minutes in wins over Vanderbilt and Georgia (27:32 at Vanderbilt and 13:09 at home vs. Georgia). In those two games, OU shot a combined 56% from the field and 50% from behind the three-point line.
The Sooners are 4-8 away from home this season and 2-6 in true road games.
Prediction for Oklahoma vs Tennessee
This is a game situation that does not set up well for Oklahoma. It's not that the Sooners aren't capable of winning on the road at Tennessee, it's just that the Sooners seemingly have to play a near-perfect game to win, which they haven't been able to do against any SEC opponent this season, including the three games they won.
Yes, they rolled into Nashville on the other side of the state earlier in the month and were able to pull off the stunning upset against 15th-ranked Vanderbilt, but the circumstances are going to be much different at 21,000-plus Thompson Boling Arena at Food City Center.