Travel notes from a 14 hour venture to Norman, Oklahoma

Like most days worth writing about, Wednesday started at the dentist. The appointment had slipped my mind before the 14 text reminders the office sent me earlier in the week. Unable to reschedule, I decided to tuck it into what would already be a jam-packed day. Getting to a Kentucky basketball game in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the United States in the middle of the week wasn’t exactly root canal-level painful, but it wasn’t exactly easy either. So, I figured a simple cleaning wouldn’t drag down the day too badly.

When Tyler took me up on my offer to represent KSR in Oklahoma, I became determined to make it as cheap and as quick a turnaround as possible. I set a goal of spending less money than it takes to park at Rupp Arena. That’s $28 for media.

How is that possible? Using some built-up airline points, I booked a flight out of Phoenix (where I’m based) to Oklahoma City which arrived at 4:45 p.m. local time on Wednesday. Then I booked a return flight, also using airline points, that left at 6:15 a.m. on Thursday. That gave me 14 and a half hours to soak in all that Norman, Oklahoma had to offer. Surprisingly doable.

Oh, and I did not book a hotel. Where would I sleep? I figured that would sort itself out when the time came.

My wife wasn’t the biggest fan of this idea. She treated this entire expedition as if I were embarking on an epic solo venture up Mount Kilimanjaro, stuffing my backpack with emergency snacks and essential provisions like ibuprofen, portable phone chargers, and an extra pair of underwear.

Alas, she dropped me off at the airport, thus beginning my 14-hour quest into the unknown.

Downtown Norman

It was a 35-minute drive from the rental car center at the OKC airport to Norman. (Side note: any airport requiring a shuttle to take passengers to the rental car center should be relocated to Mars until they build it on airport premises.) I booked a Chevrolet Malibu with my last remaining Enterprise points, so my mission to keep this trip under $28 out of pocket was still in play.

Even though the game had an 8:00 p.m. local start, I felt short on time. I picked up the rental car around 5:15 and wanted to see what Norman was about before heading to the arena. To ensure I picked the right spot, I consulted the best travel agent there is, ChatGPT.

This dazzling piece of AI instructed me to check out BIG Brewery, an acronym for Beer is Good, on Main Street. Perfect. Surely, there would be tons of basketball fans, Oklahoma and Kentucky alike, at a brewery in downtown Norman located minutes from the arena a couple of hours before the game. I approached this like Eric Cartman going to Casa Bonita, dashing through as much fun as possible with limited time.

While there was a Mexican restaurant, Norman’s Main Street did not exactly feature cliff divers jumping off waterfalls. Instead, the streets of Norman resembled a ghost town. I half expected to see a tumbleweed carom across the road. Not only did I not see many people who looked like they were attending the basketball game, I hardly saw any human beings at all.

I guzzled a mediocre beer in the nearly empty brewery next to a 10-foot statue of the Abominable Snowman from the old-school claymation Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer movie and set forth toward the arena, still puzzled where everyone was.

Parking, Parking Everywhere

There will be plenty of opportunities to disparage the Oklahoma basketball live viewing experience, but their parking lot deserves serious praise. Not only was there an ample amount of spaces in a ginormous lot, the charge to park there was…wait for it…free.

Chalk it up to supply and demand, as the number of spaces vastly outweighed the number of cars wanting to park in them, but considering the whole goal of my trip was to spend less money than it takes to park at Rupp Arena, a free spot to leave my car for multiple hours was a huge perk.

After transversing the perimeter of the building multiple times looking for the media entrance, I eventually found a tunnel garage door that got me close enough. I arrived about an hour and 45 minutes prior to tip, found my assigned desk area in the rafters, and commenced roaming the compact halls of the Lloyd Noble Center.

Lloyd Noble Center

The only games I’ve covered for KSR have been at Rupp and Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle (an NBA-quality venue), so in comparison, the Lloyd Nobel Center felt like the Cracker Jack version of a basketball arena. It’s whole vibe was an upscale high school gym from the 1990s.

The media room was decorated exclusively in concrete and banquet chairs, with the press conference area not much more elaborate, save for the OU backdrop on one of the walls.

Before I left around 1:00 a.m., I stuck my head in the (unlocked) visitors’ locker room where Kentucky prepped for and subsequently celebrated the game. It, too, provided antique banquet chairs for each player in front of old wooden lockers that, at first glance, could have passed for your grandfather’s elementary school classroom setup.

It also featured a group shower room, a relic I honestly thought vanquished during the Bush administration.

As for the arena itself, it has the potential to be legitimately good. The seating wraps the floor in a way that it feels cozy but not on top of the court. On this night, it left plenty of elbow room for the dozens and dozens of fans in attendance. 30 minutes before tip, the arena consisted mostly of people who either worked there or who were playing in the game.

You know your program is struggling when you play a top-25 team, your NCAA tournament hopes are on the line, you have a future NBA lottery pick on your roster, and the university still has to offer $2 beers to entice fans to show up. Most teams do t-shirt night when Kentucky comes to town, but Oklahoma chose violence with $2 beers.

Literally.

Someone threw a beer can at Kentucky players as they left the court. Nearly hit Brandon Garrison in the head. pic.twitter.com/OH14N5wPDk

— Adam Stratton (@AdamStrattonKSR) February 27, 2025

The crowd eventually showed up

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Blue got in.

I estimate that about 30 percent of the crowd were Kentucky fans, but the seats were crimson red so it was tough to gauge from afar if a Sooner fan was actually sitting in the seat. At tip off, the stands were probably 80 percent full, as not even cheap Busch Lights could lure the disgruntled fanbase to capacity.

The Sooner faithful who did show up got rowdy in spurts. Every time Otega Oweh touched the ball, a chorus of boos echoed the halls of LNC. The jeers grew louder after a few calls went against Oklahoma, including a patented Doug Shows charge complete with an emphatic hopstep and flex.

Kentucky fans, of course, did their thing. “Go Big Blue” chants rained down from the rafters at various points in the game. After a Brandon Garrison and-1, the sound guy cranked up the volume in the arena’s loudspeaker to drown out the beautiful melody of a Big Blue Nation takeover.

Some of the emotional tension on the court leaked into the stands as well. After Brandon Garrison’s friendly post-buzzer reminder to Jeremiah Fears that his would-be game-winner got blocked by three Kentucky players, several Oklahoma and Kentucky fans fed off that energy. They could be heard verbally sparring with some not-safe-for-work language as I snaked my way courtside. From what I could tell, though, no punches were thrown.

Ultimately, the Kentucky fan attending a game in Norman, Oklahoma on a Wednesday night for a 9:00 p.m. Eastern tip is not your typical lower level Rupp Arena blue hair…and it is awesome.

Post-game exploring

Mark Pope also understands that away game fans are not the same as the average Rupp attendee, and of course, he embraces them. I did the Rapid Reaction during the chaos of Mark Pope greeting every fan who stuck around for an autograph or selfie, but once he left, the arena emptied quickly. It was basically just me, my computer, and the cleaning crew courtside.

I wrapped up a couple of posts and pondered my next move. Considering it was almost 1:00 in the morning, I had a flight in five hours at an airport over 30 minutes away that required a shuttle from the rental car center, and I had no place to sleep, my options were limited.

Part of me considered parlaying my luck of going 2-0 in attending away basketball games this season (both of which were one-point Kentucky wins in dramatic fashion [shout out to the Gonzaga trip]) into a nearby casino. But as tempting as it was, I didn’t want to risk thwarting the euphoria of such an awesome experience with a bad run of blackjack cards. Plus, that detour could sink my entire spend-less-than-$28 plan.

So, instead, I just roamed around the surprisingly unlocked arena.

I mentioned the visitor locker rooms earlier, but there was also a visitor coaches lounge that looked like what I imagine an artist’s green room would be in a dingy music venue, except with women’s gymnastics pictures on the wall. There was also a small training room punctuated with a slightly larger, well-worn coach.

Getting some shots up

I also stumbled upon the attached practice facility for both men’s and women’s Oklahoma hoops. It proudly displayed the Sooners’ four NBA players on the men’s side, a chilling contrast to the wall of Kentucky pros that were longstanding features in Kentucky facilities.

Most importantly, there was also a basketball. After watching Jack Pilgrim and Steven Peake get up shots after away games, it felt only natural to keep up the KSR tradition. I took the ball back to the main arena and got some shots up on one of the SEC’s newest floors.

I may have edited out my several misses, but don’t worry, I finished with a make.

In the famous words of @JackPilgrimKSR and @StevenPeakeKSR, always end with a make.

Goodnight from, Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/vWqehhuxnh

— Adam Stratton (@AdamStrattonKSR) February 27, 2025

To sleep or not to sleep

I used to work night shift so my nocturnal clock ticks a little stronger than most. Still, the rest of my body ticks much slower than it used to so I figured a couple hour nap would be wise. As practically the only car in a well-lit (and free) parking lot, I leaned the front seat all the way back, flipped on the post-game radio show podcast, and tried to doze off to the dulcet tones of Matt Jones and Heather from Pikeville.

It didn’t work.

The dopamine rush of Kentucky’s incredible win kept my brain spinning to the point of sleep defiance. That, and Chevy Malibu seats are not designed for an ideal night’s rest. After an hour of painfully trying to get comfortable and getting constantly alerted by my phone that someone else commented on the fan-throwing-a-beer-at-Garrison’s-head video, I gave up and drove to the airport.

After all, maybe I could sleep there. In my brief research before I left, I found an entire website completely dedicated to the strategy around sleeping at airports. As a newbie to this underground group, I clearly have a lot to learn because I wasn’t able to sleep a wink. Loudspeaker announcements are extra jarring when you start lingering into that purgatory between dreams and hallucinations. It was as if there were a Go Big Blue chant going on somewhere.

Hopefully, I made Doron Lamb and Team No Sleep proud.

I did manage to pass out for two hours on the plane, so I am writing this from a mental state of only partial insomnia.

Tallying up the trip

To recap, my goal was to fly from Phoenix to Oklahoma and back, attend the game, all for the price of what it would cost to park at Rupp Arena: $28.

I admit, this math is a little bogus considering airline points have inherent value but forgive those semantics and allow me to tally up my actual out-of-pocket costs.

• Fees for flight to Oklahoma: $5.60
• Fees for rental car: $4.61
• Beer at BIG: $6
• Arena parking: $0
• Gas to top off rental car: $5.31
• Fees for flight back to Phoenix: $5.60
• Dental cleaning: $0 copay

That brings my total cost to $27.12, barely under the $28 budget.

It might be the equivalent of a one-point win, but a win is a win is a win, and just like Kentucky’s victory on the road over Oklahoma, I’ll take it.