NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The 2025 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament gave Kentucky basketball some of its highest highs and lowest lows of the season in the span of just two days.
On Thursday, Otega Oweh put his cape back on as he saved the day, scoring a game-winner over Oklahoma for the second time this season. On Friday, Kentucky was weakened and blitzed, suffering its largest loss of the season by a margin of 29 points.
All in all, Mark Pope’s first conference tournament at UK was certainly one to remember for the good, the bad and everything in between. With the dust seemingly settled, it’s only fair to look back upon what was a rollercoaster two-day stretch for the Cats.
DAY ONE
THE GOOD:
Kentucky earned its first win under Pope in the conference tournament, stunning Oklahoma at the buzzer thanks to further heroics from Oweh.
With sharpshooter Koby Brea exclaiming, “What just happened?!” as the Cats mobbed the court following Oweh’s shot, Kentucky fans were electric in the stands, providing what truly felt like a home-court advantage at a neutral site.
“Big Blue Nation never fails to surprise me,” Oweh said. “Obviously, I heard about it. But just living in the moment, it’s crazy. It was packed out, so much blue, so much energy. We feed off of that, so… This is something that we’re all going to remember. We just got to cherish these moments and be where our feet are. It’s just definitely a blessing to be here and playing for the state of Kentucky.”
Oweh was far more than just a game-winning shot against his former school, however, dropping a team-high 27 points, just one less than he scored in Norman prior.
Brea was also notable in the win, scoring 22 points and going 4-7 from beyond the arch.
While late complications made it much closer than it should have been, Kentucky fans traveled to Nashville desperate to see a win in the conference tournament and Pope and his Cats delivered.
THE BAD:
It’s hard to start the bad with anything other than Lamont Butler’s injury.
Kentucky’s starting point guard left the game early to get imaging done and was never able to return for the entirety of the Cats’ stint in the tournament.
“We did some imaging at halftime, some manual testing,” Pope said after the Oklahoma game. “We’ll know more probably by tomorrow. We’ll know a little more.”
In Butler’s absence Collin Chandler, who had been busted open in the first half, was forced to fill in, finishing with 22 minutes on the court. Chandler finished with just three points on 1-7 shooting (1-4 deep).
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kentucky was up by double digits with under 1.5 minutes to play but baffling turnovers and questionable officiating allowed Oklahoma to take the lead with six seconds to play, setting the stage for Oweh’s heroics.
In that stretch, there were plenty of uncalled fouls, but there were arguably just as many panicked decisions and horrendous passes that allowed the Sooners to get right back into it and almost pick off the Cats.
“First of all, still in disbelief what just happened,” Brea, who provided the opening statement after the game, said. “Otega Oweh, special, special player. It’s unbelievable what he just did out there. Shout-out to our teammates. The young guys really came up, and they grew up today. They made some big-time plays down the stretch there that were super important. Amari (Williams), (Brandon Garrison), Lamont Butler, just everybody. Everybody made an impact today. Happy about the win.”
DAY TWO
THE GOOD:
Day two had significantly fewer pros to look at.
Despite double digit showings from Amari Williams, Andrew Carr and Travis Perry, the Cats were blasted by 29 points and sent home from Nashville.
For the sake of fairness, Kentucky was shorthanded without Butler and, in his place, Perry filled his role, doing better than Chandler the day prior with 11 points.
Keeping with the Butler theme, Cats fans also got some phenomenal news about their point guard as Pope expressed confidence that Butler will be able to return for the NCAA Tournament.
“The imaging was perfect,” he said “So we’re hopeful that he’ll be back in action – I was hoping the second half, but didn’t quite make it there.”
With the idea that Butler may be back, both Perry and Chandler got extremely valuable minutes against one of the best teams in the country, something that can make them the most prepared they can be for the big dance.
“Every game is a learning experience,” Chandler said. “It just needs to be exponentially fast, learning at a fast pace, that’s what we’ve been challenged to do. We’re going to come back next week better, more confident and ready to go.”
On top of that, despite leaving once the game was firmly out of reach, BBN was loud for much of the game, doing its best to rally the weakened Cats and propel them to victory.
“We have home games in Nashville,” Trent Noah said. “It was really surreal. That’s something I don’t take for granted. My teammates don’t either. I’m just super grateful to wear a Kentucky jersey.”
THE BAD:
Kentucky lost by 29 points, the worst loss of the season for the Cats by almost double digits.
With shots not falling and a thinner roster, Kentucky was completely outmatched in the second half after doing everything in its power to stay close in the first half.
While many fans were willing to embrace the loss without Butler, the Cats themselves admitted there was more to it than that and that they simply played bad basketball.
“Lamont is a big piece to our team. We did miss him out there. It’s not like we haven’t played that team before without Lamont,” Williams said. “I don’t really feel like that’s why the outcome was the way it was.”
The team shot an abysmal 37.5% from the field and 26.3% from beyond the arch, allowing Alabama to score 99. While the Tide didn’t reach triple digits, it easily could have had it not chosen to take its foot off the gas with a 30-point advantage.
“Obviously it’s a thinner Kentucky team,” Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats said. “They’ve got a lot of injuries with Robinson has been out on the year. And then Oweh got hurt a little bit. Only played 20 minutes. We were fortunate that they weren’t as deep as us. I thought our transition could get to them. I thought we ended up breaking them towards the end of the first half, early second half. These guys played great. We were able to rest some of our older guys. We’re going to have to rest our older guys. We’ll need them against Florida.”
Simply put, despite the extenuating circumstances, nobody ever wants to be the team that allows its opponent to rest its veterans for a more important game the next day.
“Alabama is a good team,” Chandler said. “They exploited a lot of things that we were struggling at. That killed us there for a while, it was hard to fight back from that. Our offense needs to be clicking. There was a lot of gaps in our defense. That all piled up.”
*******
With the conference tournament in the books, Kentucky will turn its eyes toward the NCAA Selection Show to find out where it will head and who it will face in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Selection Sunday will kick off at 6 p.m. ET on CBS.
