The Arkansas Razorbacks (12-7, 1-5 SEC) are looking to start a winning streak as they prepare to face the Oklahoma Sooners (14-4, 1-4 SEC) on Saturday at Bud Walton Arena.
Led by fourth-year head coach Porter Moser, the Sooners are off to a less-than-stellar start in SEC play in the 2024-25 season. Oklahoma owns wins over teams such as Providence, Arizona, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Michigan, South Carolina and others.
Much like Oklahoma, Arkansas is coming off its first SEC victory of the year over the Georgia Bulldogs. The goal for John Calipari's team has to be consistency if it wants to make the NCAA Tournament.
"Let's see how we build on this," Calipari said after the game Wednesday. "Play a good Oklahoma team Saturday. Oklahoma had these guys down at Georgia pretty good, and then Georgia came back and did some stuff, made some shots, got a steal or two, and all of a sudden won the game. But Oklahoma is good. Oklahoma, I think, won their last game too."
Accomplishing that is easier said than done, but if the Razorbacks can grit one out against Georgia without freshman guard Boogie Fland, maybe they have the recipe to repeat against the Sooners.
"That was part of our mindset," forward Adou Thiero said. "Having to deal with a lot of outside noise, everybody saying we’re soft, we don’t rebound, so we had to buckle up and really get to it. I’d say also, having Boogie (Fland) out, we had to realize that we got to step up, each one of us. He’s a big part of our team and we got to do other little things to help us win. Everybody stepped up today and we were able to do that."
Here's a closer comparison of Arkansas' and Oklahoma's stats, efficiency ratings, projected lineup for the Sooners and more ahead of Saturday's game, which is set to tip off at 7:30 p.m. CT on ESPN2:
