Last week was a tale of two different teams. Kentucky went 1-1 with a 25-point beatdown loss at #18 Vanderbilt and then followed it up with a top-15 SEC road victory against Arkansas at Bud Walton Arena. It isn’t necessarily bad that Kentucky dropped a game to a ranked Vandy team, it’s how they lost. They only managed to score 55 points and ultimately lost by 25 points in pure embarrassment.
It had me thinking, if you were to ask Big Blue Nation which game they would have rather won between the two, I wouldn’t hesitate to say it would be the one against former Kentucky head coach, John Calipari, and his Razorbacks.
Kentucky has now won 6 of their last 7 games in conference play since starting SEC play off at 0-2, with those losses coming against Alabama and Missouri. Kentucky has another tough two-game schedule this week against. Tonight they’ll host Oklahoma in Rupp Arena before playing #25 Tennessee this Saturday in Lexington.
Oklahoma on paper appears to be a more winnable game, but don’t overlook the Sooners too easily. The Sooners’ 11-11 record can be a little bit misleading. Although their tournament hopes appear to be fading, they have played many really good teams very close. Teams such as Nebraska, Texas A&M, Alabama, Missouri (who as you may remember beat Kentucky), and Arkansas. All of these games were within reach for the Sooners towards the end of regulation so their record isn’t really isn’t indicative of their season’s success. They come close and failed many times this year.
Kentucky players were interviewed this week prior to the matchup against the Oklahoma Sooners. Here is what Collin Chandler and Trent Noah had to say about the win at #15 Arkansas and their thoughts looking ahead to Oklahoma on Wednesday night.
If you recall, Otega Oweh is a former Sooner himself. Last season, Kentucky played the Sooners twice in a two week time span. Oweh led the charge in the first meeting as he managed to score the final 18 points which included the game-winning layup to defeat Oklahoma on their own home floor. It was like déjà vu in the SEC Tournament when the Wildcats met up with the Sooners in Nashville, and once again it was Otega Oweh with a game-winning shot at the buzzer to eliminate his former team from the conference tournament.
They both were so much fun to experience and in case you wanted to relive it, here they are.
Kentucky will need another good performance from the talented upperclassmen guard if they want to avoid what would be a Quad 3 loss and extremely detrimental to Kentucky’s seeding for the NCAA Tournament in a few weeks. This is one you must win to prove that you are worthy of who you say you are, because if you can’t win the ‘easier ones’ then you won’t be built for a postseason run whatsoever.
Oklahoma’s point production really comes from only three players — Nijel Pack (guard), Xzayvier Brown (guard), and Tae Davis (forward), who average 45 of their 83 points per game. All three of these players transferred in to Oklahoma over the offseason so these are players that Kentucky has not seen before in maroon. If the Wildcats can get some good contributions at guard play like they did last Saturday against Arkansas then I think they should be in the driver seat to extend their winning streak tonight. It would only be two in a row, but I mean in more so of 7 of their last 8.
According to most sports books, Kentucky is around an -8.5 point betting favorite tonight. I think Kentucky will be able to manage a victory but I can see it being a lot closer than we would like for it to be because this game kind of has the feels of a “trap game” coming off of a huge victory on the road this past weekend. Let’s hope not, and hope we just secure the win with ease.
Give me the Cats winning with a final score prediction of 84-78. What are your predictions for tonight’s game? Let us know in the comment.
Did you enjoy this article? If so, you can stay connected with the growing Cats Coverage site by following them on Facebook or X/Twitter to never miss another post!
Leave a Reply