Oklahoma Goes Cold Against Kentucky as Sooners Drop Ninth Game in a Row

The Sooners went cold in the middle of Wednesday's game against Kentucky, and that cost them as they lost their ninth game in a row.

Oklahoma Sooners forward Tae Davis (13) shoots against Kentucky Wildcats forward Mouhamed Dioubate (23) during the first half at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

The nightmare stretch continued for Oklahoma on Wednesday.

The Sooners fell 94-78 on the road against Kentucky, marking their ninth loss in a row. Oklahoma hasn’t won since Jan. 3, when the Sooners defeated Ole Miss in their first conference game of the 2025-26 season.

OU fell to 11-12 overall and 1-9 in SEC play with the loss, while Kentucky improved to 16-7 and 7-3.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Middle of game proves costly

The Sooners and Wildcats went back and forth for the majority of the first half. OU trailed 35-32 at the final media timeout in the frame.

But in the last few minutes, the momentum drifted over to Kentucky’s side.

Kentucky went on an 8-0 run to end the first half and held Oklahoma scoreless for the final 3:54 of the half. The Wildcats also outscored the Sooners 7-2 in the first few minutes of the second half.

By the end of that Kentucky run, the Sooners saw the three-point deficit they were facing into a 15-point deficit. 

And that gap proved to be too large.

OU finished the contest shooting 44 percent from the field and 34 percent on 3-pointers. The Sooners went 3-of-15 on their first 15 attempts from deep.

Otega Oweh, who played at OU from 2022 to 2024, led Kentucky’s offensive effort. Oweh scored a game-high 24 points on 7-of-11 shooting. As a team, the Wildcats shot 50 percent from the floor and made 12 of their 26 three-point attempts.

Atak logs quality bench minutes

Kuol Atak’s role has been practically non-existent over the last month, but he was productive in his minutes against Kentucky.

The redshirt freshman forward logged nine points on three 3-pointers. He also grabbed two rebounds in his 16 minutes.

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Atak’s minutes off the bench come after he didn’t appear in the Sooners’ losses against Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. He played only 26 minutes combined in the four games before that, defeats against Florida, Alabama, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

Before Wednesday’s strong showing, Atak’s last big game was on Jan. 3, when OU won its SEC opener. He finished that game with 14 points, two rebounds, two steals and a block.

Atak entered the game against the Wildcats averaging 6.5 points, 1.2 rebounds and 0.2 assists per contest.

Flirting with history — in the worst way

Oklahoma can no longer finish with a winning conference record after Wednesday’s loss. The Sooners have eight SEC games remaining in the regular season.

OU will stay on the road to battle No. 15 Vanderbilt on Saturday. After that, the Sooners will have the first part of next week off before hosting Georgia on Feb. 14.

If the Sooners fall against the Commodores on Saturday, they will match the longest losing streak in program history, which they set in the 1963-64 season (10 losses in a row).

Before Wednesday’s loss, Oklahoma was No. 81 in the NET rankings, used heavily by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. 

Realistically, Oklahoma’s only chance at making the NCAA Tournament is by winning the SEC Tournament in March. Even if the Sooners win out in the regular season, they will likely be on the wrong side of the bubble to make it as an at-large team.

Their biggest focus right now, though, should simply be getting back into the win column for the first time since Jan. 3.