Mark Story: Kentucky has multiple reasons to be thankful for Otega Oweh

Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader on Feb 3, 2026

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — For my money, Otega Oweh’s performance in Kentucky’s 85-77 men’s basketball upset of then-No. 15 Arkansas Saturday night was the best all-around game of his UK career so far.

Offensively, the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Oweh played downhill and with high efficiency. The Newark, N.J., product scored a game-high 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting.

Defensively, Oweh harassed Arkansas freshman star Darius Acuff Jr. into 8-of-20 shooting, 1 of 4 on 3-point tries.

On the boards, Oweh pulled down a game-high eight rebounds.

“Otega’s effort, you think about it, he just has so much he has to do for this team,” UK coach Mark Pope said afterward.

As the Kentucky men’s basketball program has moved into the Pope coaching era, the Wildcats have had multiple reasons to be thankful that Otega Oweh signed on for the journey.

There is something old school, even blue collar, in the way Oweh has conducted the UK part of his college basketball career.

Oweh shows up for work.

In a program that has been decimated by injuries now for two seasons in a row, Oweh has played in — and started — all 58 Kentucky games over the past two seasons.

Of those 58 games in which he has played for UK, Oweh has scored in double figures in 55, including all 22 so far this season.

“Probably the most consistent player I’ve ever coached,” Pope said of Oweh after UK’s 80-78 win at Tennessee last month.

When adversity hits, Oweh does not blink.

In November, Oweh explained how he handled the scrutiny that falls on a Kentucky basketball player when things are not going well.

“You just got to keep doing what you are doing,” Oweh said. “If things (are) going amazingly well (or) when things are not going great, you still have to have the same routine.”

I asked Oweh if he gets off social media when things have gone poorly for the Wildcats.

“No, I’m on social media,” he said. “Once I get to the next level, I’m going to be on social media. So I might as well do it now, use all this to boost you.”

When he encounters criticism of himself on social media, it does not faze him, Oweh said.

“I see it and I laugh sometimes, but it doesn’t really bother me,” he said.

After Kentucky laid a dinosaur egg in an 80-55 loss at Vanderbilt last Tuesday, Oweh did not need critics on social media to tell him the Wildcats needed to step it way up against Arkansas.

After Oweh and the Cats did just that to vanquish John Calipari’s Razorbacks, the Kentucky guard told ESPN game announcers Dave Pasch and Fran Fraschilla the extra motivation he carried into that game was not because Cal used to be the Wildcats coach.

“The last time we played, the last outing we had, we really didn’t do a good job of representing Kentucky,” Oweh said of the Vandy loss. “We had to sit with that for a couple of days. We were eager to get back out there. It just so happened that we were playing Arkansas and the former coach of Kentucky.”

In the 58 games Oweh has so far worn UK blue and white, he has put himself in position to make viable Wildcats men’s hoops history.

Oweh will enter Wednesday night’s game with his former team, Oklahoma, with 950 points scored while playing for UK (he has 1,448 for his overall college career).

Fifty more points will make Oweh the ninth player in Kentucky history to reach 1,000 career points in the UK uniform while playing only two seasons for the Wildcats.

With nine SEC regular season games remaining, Oweh is 263 points behind Bill Spivey (1,213 career points) for the mantle of most career points scored for Kentucky by a player who only played two seasons.

Assuming Kentucky makes the NCAA tournament, the Wildcats are guaranteed at least 11 more games this season (that presumes one each in the SEC and NCAA tourneys).

Oweh would need to average 24 points in those 11 games to pass Spivey. That is unlikely for player averaging 16.6 points so far in the 2025-26 season.

However, if Kentucky could win at least two games each in the SEC and NCAA tournaments, then Oweh would need to average only 17.6 points a game to pass Spivey.

That would seem eminently doable for Oweh, who has averaged 20.2 points a game in UK’s nine SEC contests to date this season.

Alas, given the way Kentucky has fared in postseason tournaments in the 2020s — the Cats are 2-5 in the SEC tournament and 3-4 in the NCAA tourney this decade — there’s no certainty UK will provide Oweh the extra games he likely needs to pass Spivey.

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