Otega Oweh flipped in the game-winning layup with six seconds left to give No. 17 Kentucky a hard-fought 83-82 win over Oklahoma on Wednesday in its first-ever game at Norman, Okla.
Oweh, who played the previous two seasons with the Sooners, scored a career-high 28 points and pulled down six rebounds for the Wildcats (19-9, 8-7 Southeastern Conference).
Brandon Garrison chipped in 12 points, three steals and three blocks off the Kentucky bench. He blocked Jeremiah Fears’ attempt for a game-winning layup at the buzzer.
Jalon Moore scored 20 points, Fears added 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists and Brycen Goodine chipped in 13 points for Oklahoma (17-11, 4-11 SEC).
After a five-point first half, Oweh took over after the break in a game that featured eight ties and nine lead changes. His layup put Kansas up 81-80 with 48.4 seconds to play.
After a timeout, Moore was fouled on a layup attempt. He hit both free throws for an 82-81 Oklahoma lead with 20 seconds to play.
Earlier, a 3-pointer from Glenn Taylor Jr. gave the Sooners an 80-79 lead with 1:45 to play.
Moore scored every Sooners point in an 8-2 Oklahoma run that he capped with a breakaway jam in the middle of the first half, cutting the Wildcats’ lead to 19-16 and prompting a Kansas timeout.
A coast-to-coast sprint by Fears led to a twisting layup just before the halftime buzzer, and Oklahoma trailed 43-41.
Garrison blocked a Fears layup attempt and ran the floor for a layup, completing a 7-0 Kansas run that opened a 52-44 lead with 17:30 to play. The Sooners rallied with an 8-2 spree that sandwiched 3-pointers by Kobe Elvis and Goodine around a soaring Moore layup, paring the Kansas lead to 58-57 with 13:27 left.
Later it was an 8-0 Oklahoma surge, punctuated by a driving layup by Taylor, that gave the Sooners a 68-63 lead with 9:40 to play.
Oklahoma shot 57.7 percent from the floor in the second half, including 53.8 percent (7 of 13) from 3-point range, but it wasn’t enough. Kentucky sank 51.9 percent of its second-half field goal attempts but was just 2 of 10 from long range after the break.
–Field Level Media
