The Oklahoma men head to Bluegrass Country this week for an SEC hoops showdown with the Kentucky Wildcats, one of college basketball's true blue-blood programs.
The Sooners (11-11, 1-8) find themselves on extremely shaky ground as they enter the homestretch of the season. Their current eight-game losing stretch is not only the longest active such streak in the nation, but their remaining nine-game schedule is considered by a number of experts to be one of the most difficult in college basketball.
Oklahoma's next five games include road tests at Kentucky and No. 15 Vanderbilt this week, with a road trip to No. 24 Tennessee on Feb. 18 sandwiched between home dates with formerly ranked Georgia and Texas A&M. The game with Texas A&M will be the second meeting of the season. The Aggies won the earlier contest 83-76 in College Station.
No one at Oklahoma is feeling the heat more over the Sooners current hardwood struggles than head coach Porter Moser. OU has never had a winning conference record in Moser's five seasons at the helm, and the Sooners have never finished higher than seventh in conference standings. That is all but certain to be the case again this season, which is why many believe the OU head coach won't make it to the end of the season.
Oklahoma is 0-5 in the all-time basketball series with Kentucky. Two of those defeats came just one year ago by a combined two points. And it was former Sooner Otega Oweh who was the villian in both games. Oweh, who played two seasons at OU for Moser in 2021-23, scored the winning goal in the final seconds in both games, an 83-82 win at Oklahoma during the regular season and again, 85-84, during the SEC Tournament.
This will be the Sooners' second visit all-time to historic Rupp Arena, considered one of the meccas of college basketball and this season celebrating its 50-year anniversary. Oklahoma's first game at Kentucky predated Rupp Arena. The two teams met in 1945 at what was then Memorial Coliseum. Kentucky won that game 43-33. OU and Kentucky met for a second time 42 years later, in 1987 at Rupp Arena, with the 12th-ranked Sooners falling 75-74.
Wednesday's game at Kentucky will be televised on ESPN2 and is scheduled for an 8 p.m. CT tipoff. Tom Hart will be on play-by-play for the game with Dane Bradshaw providing analysis.
What to know about Kentucky
Kentucky averages 81.4 points a game, 9th-best in the SEC, but where the Wildcats separate themselves from other SEC teams is on the defensive end. Kentucky ranks No. 2 in the conference, holding opponents to 71.0 points through 22 games, and 4th in both field-goal percentage defense (41.7) and three-point percentage defense (30.4).
Oweh has led Kentucky in scoring the last two seasons. He averages 16.6 points. 4.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game. He has scored in double digits in every game this season and at least 20 points in seven of the last nine games. He also has taken it out on his former team, averaging 27.5 points in two games.
Kentucky ranks 28th in the NCAA NET rankings, which is one of the primary tools used by the selection committee in filling out the brackets for the NCAA Tournament. While Oklahoma posted a record of 1-8 in January, the Wildcats went 6-3 during the month, including wins over Mississippi State, Texas and Arkansas, all of which have wins this season over the Sooners. Kentucky comes into the OU game winners of six of its last seven games.
What to know about Oklahoma
The Sooners are just two losses away from tying the all-time record for consecutive losses by an Oklahoma men's basketball team. Only two other OU teams have longer losing streaks than this year's team. The 2010 team coached by Jeff Capel lost nine games in a row. The current record is 10 straight losses set back in 1964. That team finished with an overall record of 7-18 and a last-place 3-11 record in the Big Eight Conference.
Through a 13-game nonconference schedule, Oklahoma established itself as a second-half team, out-scoring its opponent in 11 of the 13 games in the second half and posting a 10-3 record.
Once SEC play began in January, however, the Sooners have won just one of nine games, outscoring their opponents in the second 20 minutes in just two of nine games. Oklahoma's inability to close out games, despite holding second-half leads in a number of the games it has lost, is the root cause for its current struggles. Three of the Sooners' last three losses have been by four or fewer points.
Oklahoma's two top scorers this season, Miami transfer Nigel Pack and St. Joseph's transfer Xzayvier Brown, each have four games of at least 20 points in SEC games. Just not in any of the same games.
Pack has reached the 20-point level in each of his last three games (Texas, Arkansas and Missouri) and against Texas A&M. Brown had back-to-back-to-back 20-point performances against South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, as well as the Sooners' conference season opener against Ole Miss. The only time in conference games that one or the other didn't score 20 or more points was in a 19-point loss to Mississippi State. In that game, the Sooner backcourt duo combined for 24 points.
Stat watch
Oklahoma has a higher shooting percentage than its opponent in 14 of its 22 games this season, but is just 1-of-9 in that category against SEC opponents. The one was the Sooners' lone conference victory, 86-70 over Ole Miss, when OU shot 50.8% to 37.7% for Ole Miss.
Kentucky is 13-2 this season when it shoots a better field-goal percentage than its opponent and 4-0 against SEC teams.
Prediction
Wednesday night's game at Kentucky does not set up well for the struggling Sooners. The Wildcats, ranked as high as ninth earlier in the season, are a better team than Oklahoma and certainly are playing much better at this point in the season than the Sooners, but the home court alone is enough to favor Kentucky in this one.