Kentucky's Otega Oweh returns to OU in a must-win for Sooners
There is going to be a lot of familiarity at the Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday between OU and Kentucky.
A welcome back to Norman for Wildcat wing Otega Oweh. Now a junior, Oweh spent his first two seasons with the Sooners. And he’ll always have the distinction as the first high school recruit to sign with Porter Moser at OU.
Maybe it will be weird, maybe it won’t. What obvious, though, is both teams want the win. The Sooners? They need the win.
“No, no,” said Moser if he thinks it will be strange. “I think a lot of him as a young man, Otega, great young man. It’s unfortunate with this business right now. It’s not going to be weird. We’re both competitors.
“He’s going to try to win, we’re going to try to win. As you go through this portal era, you’re going to be facing players that you’ve coached before. That’s part of it. I think we’re both competitors and want to win. But I do think a lot of him as a young man.”
Oweh has put up the best numbers of his career this season with UK. But coincidentally enough, he’s coming off the worst game of his season, a two-point effort where he fouled out in a loss at Alabama. Before then, Oweh had scored at least 10 points in every single game.
Oweh understands Wednesday could be emotional, but it’s still just basketball.
“I’m excited. Just treating it as another game,” said Oweh on Tuesday. “Nah, it’s not even that (revenge). Every player who plays their old school wants to do well.”
It feels like OU fans will embrace Oweh, but we’ll all find out together. He’s not going to guess how it will all shake out.
“I really don’t know,” Oweh said. “We’re gonna see. Either way, I’m just excited to be on the court again.”
There are not too many players on the OU roster that even played with Oweh. But one of them is center Sam Godwin, who was there for both seasons
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“It’s going to be different,” center Sam Godwin said. “Obviously, he was here the last two years. He’s a great guy. he’s been killing it this year. It’s going to be different competing against him on a different team. It’ll be fun.”
No matter how you slice it, should be a great atmosphere in Norman on Wednesday night.
More familiarity
Oweh is coming back to Norman, and it’s Kobe vs. Koby. That’s Kobe Elvis for OU and Koby Brea for Kentucky.
The two are squaring off against each other after being teammates and roommates for three seasons at Dayton.
“It’s going to be fun,” Elvis said. “I was literally texting him this morning because that was my roommate at Dayton. It’s gonna be a great feeling to go against my brother, somebody I lived with for three years. It’s gonna be fun, amazing. Gonna be a blessing to share the court with him.”
It wasn’t planned, but both acknowledge what a special moment Wednesday will be. And how far they’ve come in their respective basketball journeys.
“We both decided to go to different schools,” Elvis said. “We always talked about, ‘Hey, what if we end up playing each other?’ And then we both ended up going to the same conference. So we have a chance to see each other. That was definitely what we talked about, just being on the same team, all the memories we had before and how fun it’s going to be to share the court wearing different jerseys.”
