There is nothing more exhilarating or motivational in the realm of competitive sport than the opportunity for a rematch against a team or individual that you lost to earlier in the same season.
That's the situation the Oklahoma baseball team is in as it gets ready to face Kentucky in the opening round of the SEC Baseball Tournament this week in Hoover, Alabama. Kentucky swept a three-game series against the Sooners during the regular season less than two weeks ago.
And to add some additional juice to the SEC tournament matchup between the two teams, Kentucky, the 13-seed, is the lower seed of the two teams. Oklahoma is the 12-seed. Only four SEC teams are seeded lower than the Sooners, who were the Big 12 regular-season champions a year ago.
Neither Oklahoma (33-19, 14-16) nor Kentucky ended the regular season on a high note. The Wildcats (29-23, 13-17) were swept by Vanderbilt in Nashville this past weekend. Meanwhile, the Sooners lost two of three at home to Red River rival Texas. The week before that, OU lost three games at Kentucky by scores of 4-3, 8-5 and 7-2.
The regular-season pairing between OU and Kentucky was the first time the two teams had ever faced each other on the baseball diamond.
The Oklahoma-Kentucky game is listed as Game 2 on the SEC tournament schedule and is set to start 30 minutes after Game 1, which begins at 8:30 p.m. CT Tuesday. The winner of that game will face 5-seed Georgia at the same time on Wednesday. The loser is eliminated.
What fans need to know ahead of OU's rematch with Kentucky
Oklahoma
- Oklahoma has won four postseason conference tournaments as members of the Big Eight (1977) and Big 12 (1997, 2013 and 2022). This is the Sooners' first conference tournament as a member of the SEC.
- Junior catcher Easton Carmichael leads the Sooners with a .321 batting average, a .980 on-base percentage, 14 home runs and 54 runs batted in.
- OU pitching ace Kyson Witherspoon will probably get the start against Kentucky in the SEC tournament. On Monday, the Sooner right-hander was named an All-SEC First-Team selection. He leads the SEC with an ERA of 2.48 and shares the lead with LSU's Anthony Eyanson with nine wins. Witherspoon worked five innings in a 4-3 loss to Kentucky on May 9. He allowed four runs on six hits, struck out four and was charged with the loss, just his third of the season.
- Sooner freshman second baseman Kyle Branch was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team. He is hitting .304, second best on the team
Kentucky
- Kentucky is appearing in its 26th SEC Baseball Tournament. The Wildcats have an overall record of 22-41 in the SEC tournament They have two regular-season conference championships to their credit (2006 and 2024), but have never won a tournament championship.
- In the three-game series during the regular season, it was the top of the Kentucky lineup that did a lot of the damage. Cole Hague, Tyler Bell and Luke Lawrence, three of the top four hitters on the Kentucky roster, each collected two or more hits, including home runs. Hague leads the Wildcats with a .322 batting average and 12 home runs and is second on the team with 39 RBI.
- Twelve of Kentucky's 17 SEC losses have been by a total of 17 runs. Fifteen of the team's 23 overall losses have been by one or two runs.
- The Wildcats lead the SEC in stolen bases (120), sacrifice flies (31) and sacrifice bunts (41).
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