Kentucky offense takes care of business in 16-point win over Oklahoma
There wasn’t much drama for the Kentucky Wildcats on Wednesday night.
Mark Pope’s UK basketball team blew open what had been a close game with Oklahoma in the final minutes of the first half, and then the Cats pulled away from there to secure a 94-78 victory over the Sooners in Rupp Arena.
Kentucky improved to 16-7 on the season and 7-3 in the SEC with the victory, which came in its first outing since a frenzied upset at then-No. 15 Arkansas last Saturday night. The win over Oklahoma — now 1-9 in the league and already the last-place team in the conference — was just the second double-digit victory in SEC play for the Wildcats, whose past five league wins had come by an average margin of 5.0 points per game.
Otega Oweh led the Cats with 24 points and improved to 3-0 against his former college team. The UK senior played his first two seasons at Oklahoma.
Brandon Garrison tallied 20 points and 11 rebounds in one of his best performances as a Kentucky player. It was his first double-double as a Wildcat and his highest-scoring game at UK so far. Collin Chandler added 18 points for the Wildcats, going 4 for 8 from 3-point range.
This one was never really close in the second half.
Kentucky came out of the halftime locker room with an 11-point lead — after going 9 for 16 on 3-pointers in the first half — and the Cats extended that advantage with a 12-4 run to begin the final period.
That flurry gave UK a 55-36 lead before the first TV timeout of the second half, and the Sooners never got closer than eight. The Cats turned in one of their best offensive performances of the season against the SEC’s lowest-ranked defense. The 94 points were the most they’ve scored against a high-major foe.
UK was 12 for 26 from 3-point range, despite missing its final three long-range attempts of the night. The 12 3s tied for the Cats’ season high against high-major opposition. The team’s 21 assists also tied UK’s season high against high-major competition. The Cats committed only six turnovers.
Even with Kentucky’s stellar shooting display in the first half, the Wildcats couldn’t put any distance between themselves and the Sooners in the early going.
Neither team led by more than one possession until Garrison’s dunk with 9:31 remaining in the half gave UK a 24-20 lead. Oklahoma’s Xzayvier Brown answered that bucket with a 3-pointer on the other end, and it remained a one-possession margin from there until Malachi Moreno hit a free throw to put the Cats ahead 32-28 with 5:25 left in the half.
They still didn’t pull away from the Sooners until the very end of the period.
Up only three points at the final TV timeout of the half, Kentucky went into the break on an 8-0 run, thanks to a pair of 3-pointers by Chandler and a basket by Mouhamed Dioubate in the final 2:17. The Sooners missed nine of their final 10 shots of the first half.
Kentucky led 43-32 at halftime and extended that lead to 19 points before the first TV timeout of the second half. The 11-point lead at the break was the Cats’ first double-digit advantage at halftime against a high-major team this season.
UK played yet another game without Jaland Lowe, Jayden Quaintance and Kam Williams, who have all started for the Wildcats this season but have been sidelined with injuries in recent weeks.
Lowe is out for the season with a shoulder injury. Williams underwent surgery for a broken foot two weeks ago, and Pope has said there’s an “outside chance” he’ll be able to rejoin the team this season. Quaintance missed his eighth straight game with issues related to his surgically repaired knee. There’s no timetable for his return to the court.
Kentucky will be back in Rupp Arena this weekend for a rematch with the No. 25-ranked Tennessee Volunteers, who the Wildcats defeated 80-78 in Knoxville on Jan. 17. Since that game, the Vols have run off four consecutive wins, including an 84-66 victory over Ole Miss in their most recent outing Tuesday night.
UK has won four consecutive regular-season games against Tennessee (16-6, 6-3 SEC), though the Cats were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by the Vols last year.
The game is set for 8:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN, and UK’s 1995-96 national championship team will be honored in Rupp Arena as part of the night’s festivities.
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 11:17 PM.
