OU Basketball: Oklahoma Battles John Calipari, Arkansas on Road After First SEC Win

NORMAN — After seven days of rest, Oklahoma will battle a team whose start mirrors the Sooners.

OU faces Arkansas on Saturday after having a conference bye earlier in the week. Both the Sooners and Razorbacks picked up their first SEC wins in their last games.

Here’s what you need to know about the matchup:

Calipari-led squad

Longtime Kentucky, Memphis and UMass head coach John Calipari is now the man in charge in Fayetteville. Calipari has led six teams to Final Four appearances and won the 2012 National Championship while coaching the Wildcats.

But Calipari has yet to see the same success at Arkansas, where he arrived before the 2024-25 season.

The Razorbacks (12-7, 1-5 SEC) were one of two winless teams in league play before they upset Georgia on Wednesday. The slow start came after Arkansas finished the non-conference portion of their schedule 11-2, losing only to Baylor and Illinois.

Arkansas took a major hit in its third SEC game, a loss to Florida, on Jan. 11, when point guard Boogie Fland suffered a hand injury. Fland, who averaged 15.1 points and 6.3 assists per game before his injury, is out indefinitely.

Still, the Razorbacks have plenty of talent, and that showed in the win against Georgia.

Forward Adou Thiero paced Arkansas with 17 points and 11 rebounds. As a team, the Razorbacks collected 40 rebounds to Georgia’s 30.

Considering Oklahoma is last in the SEC in rebounds per game with 32.8, the Razorbacks’ length could pose a tough matchup for the Sooners.

“They always play really, really hard,” OU coach Porter Moser said. “Their length and athleticism… (Calipari’s) teams are always going to play so hard. We’re going to have to be really strong with the ball.”

Building off a win

The first 25 minutes of Oklahoma’s win against South Carolina last Saturday looked like more of the same.

The Sooners — losers of four games in a row after beginning the season 13-0 — committed 11 first-half turnovers despite leading for the entire half. South Carolina took advantage of OU’s sloppy play early in the second half, taking its first lead of the game.

But after that, the Sooners caught fire. OU retook the lead and, shortly after, went on a 15-0 run that turned a five-point lead into a 20-point one.

Jalon Moore was the catalyst in that game, like he’s been in many of the Sooners’ wins. Moore logged a game-high 22 points, marking his 13th game in a row reaching double figures.

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Moore has shot better than 50% in six of OU’s last seven games, giving the Sooners an efficient offensive lift.

"He's making better decisions,” Moser said. “When he gets to the rim, he can get to the rim. When he's not, he's got to change it, it'll come back. He's super confident stepping in for a shot. He can put it on the deck. He's just playing about the right things, and I think he's playing that way."

More than anything, the win against the Gamecocks relieved some of the pressure looming from OU still being winless in conference play. Now that OU is in the win column, Moser believes his team will climb the ladder.

“Now let’s go,” Moser said. “Start stacking wins, playing better so we can stack wins.”