Arkansas, Oklahoma Have Long History of Playing Anywhere Other Than On Campus

Three regular season games between Razorbacks, Sooners basketball racked up nearly 20,000 miles

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Jul 31, 2023 6:55 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Oklahoma and Arkansas have gone out of their way to avoid playing one another in football. However, when it comes to basketball, the two schools have literally gone out of their way to find a way to make it happen.

The last four times the Sooners and Razorbacks scheduled a meeting on the hardwood, including the one coming up this winter in the Crimson and Cardinal Classic, it has been off campus. The recent announcement that Eric Musselman's once again revamped Arkansas squad will meet former Arkansas-Little Rock coach Porter Moser's Oklahoma team halfway at the Bok Center in Tulsa makes is three consecutive seasons the teams have met up in Northwest Oklahoma.

Prior to that, Arkansas began a segment of the series that has seen the Razorbacks win three of the last four meetings with a 92-83 win over the Sooners on the West Coast in Portland. It's all part of a trend for two schools close enough that it should have been a no-brainer to schedule infinite home-and-home series.

Portland might as well be the Koryakia Province of Russia as far as Arkansas fans are concerned in a non-NCAA Tournament portion of the season. There's not a lot of difference between 2,200 miles and 4,400 miles. Both feel pretty unattainable on a typical Arkansas paycheck, especially when hotel rooms are factored in.

Yet, that's not the furthest these two have traveled to play one another. Not only have they gone further by over 150%, they have done it twice. With Arkansas coming off its national championship season, Nolan Richardson prepared his team for another run to the national title game by heading to Honolulu for the Rainbow Classic. There, Corliss Williamson and company held off a huge 31 point, 9 rebound performance by Ryan Minor for a huge second half comeback, 86-84.

Going back two meetings prior, in the twilight days of Eddie Sutton's reign on the hill, Arkansas and Oklahoma chose to spend late November in Anchorage for the Great Alaska Shootout rather than just drive down the road. Once again the Razorbacks came in highly ranked and had to hold on late, 84-78, this time against head coach Billy Tubbs. Joe Klein, Alvin Robertson and Leroy Sutton combined for 60 points to offset the Sooners' Wayman Tisdale and Tim McCalister who put shots up at such a high rate en route to a combined 46 points they almost fired it up more than the entire Arkansas roster.

For the record, those three games meant 19,500 miles round trip to play a team 250 miles away. The two schools could have played on their home courts every year from that 1984 game until this December before traveling that many miles. Not to mention the money saved in hotels and whatever parkas were needed to hold off the Alaskan cold may have cost.

In all, Arkansas and Oklahoma have faced off in the regular season 30 times across a span of 85 years. Eight of those meetings will have taken place somewhere other than Fayetteville or Norman once these two find themselves squaring off as SEC foes in 2024-25. That's 27% of all games.