Oklahoma lost to the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens earlier in this college basketball season. On Wednesday night, the 14 seed Sooners will have an opportunity to reverse that outcome in the opening round of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.
This will be the Sooners' first appearance in the SEC tournament as one of the two new teams to join the conference last summer. Georgia is 49-61 in 64 SEC tournaments with two tournament championships in 1983 and 2008.
Both teams come into the tournament riding the momentum of consecutive wins. Oklahoma (19-12, 6-12) posted back-to-back wins last week over then-No. 15 Missouri and Texas.
Georgia (20-11, 8-10), the 11 seed in the tournament, is on an even bigger roll with four consecutive victories, one of which was over No. 4 Florida.
Georgia defeated OU 72-62 on Jan. 11 with a strong second half that wiped out a three-point Oklahoma lead at halftime. Jalon Moore led the Sooners with 17 points. Super freshman Jeremiah Fears was held to just two points, only the fourth time all season he failed to score in double figures.
When the two teams faced each other earlier in the season, it was only the second meeting all-time. The one other occasion was in the Chaminade Christmas Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Christmas Day in 1987. The Sooners won that game, 93-90.
ESPN's Joe Lunardi has Georgia comfortably in this year's NCAA Tournament, projecting the Bulldogs as a 9 seed. With OU's two wins last week, Lunardi moved the Sooners from first four teams out to one of the last four teams in the tournament.
Lunardi has said, though, that the Sooners could still use another win in the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament.
When all the dust settles on Selection Sunday this coming Sunday, the Sooners are hopeful they will have done enough to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2021 and the first under head coach Porter Moser.
The Oklahoma-Georgia game is the last of four SEC tournament games to be played on Wednesday. It is scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. CT or 25 minutes after Game 3. The game will be televised on SEC Network. The announce crew will consist of Karl Ravech (play-by-play), Jimmy Dykes (analysis) and Molly McGrath (sideline reporter).
What fans need to know
Oklahoma
- Until Saturday, Oklahoma had started the same lineup in 14 consecutive games. That streak ended against Texas because of the injury to 6-foot-10 starting forward Sam Godwin. Accordiing to the SEC availability report, Godwin will be out again against Georgia.
- The Sooners are 5-0 this season on neutral courts, defeating Providence, Arizona and Louisville in the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas, Michigan in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Oklahoma State in Oklahoma City.
- Both OU and Georgia have outstanding and potential one-and-done freshman stars in their starting lineup. For the Sooners, it is Jeremiah Fears. The 6-foot-4 point guard is averaging 16.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game. He has scored in double digits in 27 games out of 31 with a season-high 31 points last week against Missouri. In OU's win over Mississippi State, Fears became just the second SEC player in the last 29 seasons to register 27 points, at least 10 rebounds and at least five assists in a game. He earned his fourth SEC Freshman of the Week honor this week and was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team.
- If the rematch with Georgia comes down to free throws late, Oklahoma leads the SEC and ranks No. 6 nationally, shooting 79% at the charity stripe.
Georgia
- Georgia has played 14 games against teams ranked in the top 25 this season, and eight of those were against teams ranked in the top 10. The Bulldogs won two of the games played against top-10 teams over No. 6 Kentucky in January and No. 3 Florida in late February. Both games were at Georgia.
- Like the Sooners, the Bulldogs are led by a superstar freshman, Asa Newell. Newell had 17 points in the first game against Oklahoma this season and averages 15.1 points, along with 6.5 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-11 freshman has been named SEC Freshman of the Week four different times this season and was on the SEC All-Freshman Team with Fears.
- Junior guard Silas Demary Jr. is another big weapon in the Georgia offense. He is the Bulldogs' second leading scorer, averaging 13.1 points a game. But in the last eight games, he has averaged 19.3 points and 3.5 assists in 35.6 minutes.
- Georgia ranks third in the SEC and 11th nationally in blocked shots per game. The Bulldogs are swatting away an average of 5.3 opponents' field-goal attempts every game.
Prediction
As the higher-seeded team, Georgia is a slight favorite in Wednesday night's game. In the earlier game played at Georgia, Oklahoma led 36-33 at the half and 50-49 midway through the second half. The game really didn't start getting away from the Sooners until around the seven-minute mark. It was a five-point game with about 1:30 remaining, but OU couldn't get any closer. Both teams are playing really well at the right time of the season.
Georgia won by 16 at Texas just a week before the Sooners' 76-72 win there Saturday. OU will be playing without Sam Godwin, but he wasn't much of a factor in the first meeting with just two points and two rebounds.
Jalon Moore had just 10 points against Texas. Look for him to be a bigger factor against Georgia. The combination of Moore and Jeremiah Fears, plus the 3-point shooting of Brycen Goodine, will lead the Sooners to an upset win, avenging the earlier loss to the Dawgs, and setting up a rematch with No. 6 Kentucky on Thursday.