NASHVILLE — No. 6 Kentucky men’s basketball pulled out a gutsy 85-84 win over No. 14 Oklahoma in the 2025 Men’s SEC Tournament in Bridgestone Arena.
The win not only kept Kentucky undefeated against Oklahoma all-time, improving to 5-0, but gave the Cats their first ever SEC Tournament win with Mark Pope at the helm.
Kentucky entered the game with a starting five that was all playing in its first ever SEC Tournament contest. In fact, on the entire roster, only Jaxson Robinson, out for the season, had ever played in an SEC Tournament before. The starting five for the Cats was Otega Oweh, Lamont Butler, Koby Brea, Andrew Carr and Amari Williams.
Kicking things off in a very pro-Kentucky neutral site, the Cats came out firing, utilizing the game’s first bucket from Brea and 3-pointers from Carr and Oweh to force OU Head Coach Porter Moser to burn a quick timeout down 8-0.
With Pope beginning to use his subs, adding Brandon Garrison and Collin Chandler, the Sooners finally realized they were in a tournament game and pushed back, making the score 12-7 by the first media timeout.
Kentucky fans were soon treated to the arrivals of Travis Perry, Ansley Almonor and Trent Noah, completing the Kentucky rotation with two Cats — Robinson and Kerr Kriisa — done for the season.
The Wildcats would maintain the lead for the majority of the half, but things shifted late when a 9-0 Oklahoma run put the Sooners ahead for the first time all night.
Things would go from bad to worse for Kentucky as Butler would be seen chatting with the athletic trainer on the bench before heading to the locker room. Pope would confirm at halftime that, after a physical first half of play, Butler was having issues with his shoulder and went to get imaging done.
Despite missing its starting point guard, Kentucky would manage to regain the advantage, going into the half leading by two with the score at 40-38.
Back out for the second half, the Sooners would make a rally on the back of future NBA draft pick Jeremiah Fears, who had logged 16 points by the early stages of the period.
Kentucky wouldn’t let the rally go on too long, however, utilizing a 6-0 run to force a Sooner timeout and an and-one by Garrison to lead by seven with under 12 to go.
OU would get back into the game, however, with the pair beginning to trade blows back and forth with neither squad able to pull away from the other.
With depth beginning to be a real issue for a tired Kentucky team, a big 3-pointer by the Sooners’ Luke Northweather made it a one-point game once more and forced a UK timeout.
Stunningly, the Cats would get their energy back with lethal 3-point shooting and an and-one play by Oweh made the advantage double digits with the score at 75-65.
The scoring run would reach 11-0 before Moser would finally call a timeout for the Sooners, but it was too late to stop Kentucky from boasting its biggest lead of the entire game up to that point.
While the Sooners would get it back into single digits, a pair of Oweh free throws made it double digits again with under 1.5 minutes to play, all but sealing Oklahoma’s fate.
Some late mishaps and questionable officiating would make it closer than it should have been, but the Cats escaped with the victory nonetheless thanks to Oweh at the buzzer.
Kentucky will return to action in less than 24 hours, taking the court for an SEC quarterfinals matchup against No. 3 Alabama. The Cats will look to avenge their two regular season losses to the Tide 25 minutes after the conclusion of game 11. The contest will air live on the SEC Network.
