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Kentucky had a 12-point lead with 4:31 to play in Thursday’s second-round game against Oklahoma at the SEC Tournament. Back-to-back triples by Otega Oweh and Koby Brea, followed shortly thereafter by an and-1 from Oweh, blew open what had been a tight ball game. The Wildcats looked like they’d cruise into the quarterfinal round.
Then Oklahoma came storming back. Jalon Moore hit a 3 with 1:40 to go. Jeremiah Fears got an and-1 to fall with 1:19 to play. Fears and Moore combined to score 7 points in 35 seconds in the game’s final minute to storm back in front and take a 1-point lead.
But, with 6 seconds remaining in the game, Oweh broke the heart of his former team for the second time this season.
A floater from Oweh with 0.5 seconds remaining on the clock gave Kentucky an 85-84 win and pushed the Wildcats into the quarters.
Oweh finished with 27 points on 8-of-14 shooting. He also provided 5 assists and 4 boards. According to OptaSTATS, Oweh is the only Division 1 player since the turn of the century to score at least 25 points and make a game-winning shot in 2 different 1-point wins against the same team in the same season.
There’s rubbing salt in a wound, and then there’s doing whatever Oweh has done to OU this season.
Brea added 22 points with 4 made triples. Andrew Carr scored 11 and grabbed 7 boards. As a team, the Wildcats shot 52% from the field. They made 7 of their last 9 shot attempts in the game. But they also turned it over twice in the final 30 seconds to give Oklahoma a chance to steal the game.
“If I just talk about the last play, you lose the greatness of the moment,” coach Mark Pope said after the game. “The greatness of the moment is that Otega turned it over 2 times in a row in the last minute, blowing a 10-point lead, which I’m responsible for, he’s responsible for, everybody is responsible for.
“What makes that moment so spectacular is he was somehow able to move past the devastation of just kicking to the curb an emotional, hard-fought win and losing Lamont (Butler) and all the things that came with that. These guys, these really special guys that love Kentucky so much and want so badly to perform for this team, they were like, OK, this thing went totally bad on us, we totally messed this up, all of us, myself included, and then they still stayed present enough to make a game-winning play in the last 5 seconds. That’s why that play is so special, right?”
Butler left the game in the first half with an apparent shoulder injury. Pope didn’t have a concrete update on his status after the game. Kentucky faces Alabama on Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET on SEC Network.
For the Sooners, Fears led the way again in the scoring department. A day after he scored 29 points to lift Oklahoma over Georgia, the freshman guard poured in 28 points on 10-of-22 shooting. He also had 5 assists. Moore and Kobe Elvis each added 12 points.
OU made 9 triples, shot 48% from the floor, turned the basketball over less than Kentucky, nearly matched Kentucky in the paint, and got 33 points from the bench. The Sooners, once again, put a strong foot forward. And they appear to be safely into the NCAA Tournament.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
