SEC Tournament second round: Kentucky Wildcats 85, Oklahoma Sooners 84
Kentucky makes its debut in the 2025 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament on Thursday in a second-round game at approximately 9:30 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena against the Oklahoma Sooners. The SEC Network has the telecast.
As the No. 6 seed, the Wildcats received a first-round bye. As the No. 14 seed, Oklahoma opened with an 81-75 victory against No. 11 seed Georgia on Wednesday. UK-OU will start 25 minutes after the first game of the night session between No. 7 seed Missouri and No. 9 seed Mississippi State.
Ben Roberts, Ryan Hermens and yours truly will be reporting from courtside. Cameron Drummond and Mark Story will be monitoring the telecast. You can follow Ben’s updates on Bluesky at @benrobertshl. You can follow the rest of us on X/Twitter at @markcstory, @ryanhermens, @cdrummond97 and @johnclayiv.
You can follow a dedicated Kentucky basketball X/Twitter list by clicking here.
Scouting report: Oklahoma
After its win against Georgia, Oklahoma is 20-12 overall. The Sooners’ regular-season SEC record was 6-12. That included an 83-82 loss to visiting Kentucky on Feb. 26. But Coach Porter Moser’s team has won four of its last six games after losing 85-63 at No. 2 Florida on Feb. 18. The two losses have come by a total of four points.
The Sooners are No. 38 in KenPom’s adjusted overall efficiency rankings. They rank 21st in adjusted offensive efficiency and 71st in adjusted defensive efficiency. OU is 43rd in the NCAA NET computer rankings. It is 7-10 in Quad 1 games.
Freshman guard Jeremiah Fears leads the Sooners in scoring at 16.7 points per game. The Illinois native scored 29 points in the win over Georgia. OU has been helped by the emergence of Mohamed Wague, who grabbed six offensive rebounds Wednesday night against the Bulldogs.
Box score from Kentucky-Oklahoma game on Feb. 26
Scouting report: Kentucky
Kentucky is 21-10 overall. The Wildcats finished 10-8 in the SEC after wins against LSU 95-64 at Rupp Arena and Missouri 91-83 in Columbia to close out the regular season. The Cats won three of their last four. The lone loss was to No. 1 Auburn.
Kentucky is No. 12 in KenPom’s adjusted overall efficiency rankings. The Cats are No. 6 in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 57 in adjusted defensive efficiency. They are also No. 12 in the NCAA NET rankings. Their Quad 1 record is 10-9.
Former Oklahoma guard Otega Oweh scored 28 points in the victory over his former team last month. Oweh scored his team’s final 18 points, including the game-winner with 6.1 seconds remaining. Oweh is averaging 16.2 points per game. He scored 24 points in the rout of LSU and 22 in the road win at Mizzou.
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 9:30 PM.
