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At several points throughout No. 6 Kentucky’s 63-57 victory over No. 5 Oklahoma Sunday afternoon, Tonie Morgan gingerly brought herself back to her feet following a hard fall.

The Wildcats’ (16-2, 3-1 SEC) senior point guard — who led all players in scoring with 22 points on 8-of-19 shooting from the field, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range — had a dominant first half, during which she contributed 15 points.

Though she appeared to be injured in the second half, Morgan played nearly the full 40 minutes; it was behind her tough-as-hell performance that the Wildcats rallied back from a 13-point deficit in the second quarter, securing their second top-10 win of the season.

Morgan could be spotted grimacing and limping over the course of the fourth quarter, and gave the more than 5,700 gathered fans quite the fright when, after a particularly rough landing, she remained on the floor, crying.

Receiving a thumbs-up from the other Wildcats on the floor, coach Kenny Brooks and his staff opted to stay on the bench and keep Morgan in the game.

“Tonie and I, one of the beauties about our relationship is we’re growing closer and closer every day,” Brooks said. “We meet all the time, we watch film together. And so, we’re on a crash course of getting to know each other. And we talk quite a bit throughout the basketball game…I don’t know what she said to them, but they turned around quickly and they were like, ‘she’s good.’ And so I believed them.”

Similar to UK’s New Year’s Day road win at LSU, Morgan served as a sparkplug for UK’s offense, which shot 34% from the field against Oklahoma, and a game-low 27% from the field in the first quarter. Kentucky scored just 11 points in the first 10 minutes, granting the Sooners a 6-point lead ahead of the second period.

Oklahoma head coach Jennie Baranczyk complimented Morgan’s ability to orchestrate UK’s offense, noting how difficult it is to contain her and the rest of Kentucky’s “shooters,” like junior center Clara Strack, who was recently selected to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List, which recognizes her among the best players in the country.

“(Morgan is) obviously really, really good,” Baranczyk said. “I mean, she’s fast. She can find things in transition, but, you know, she can work off of a ball screen as good as anybody, and find people. And, you know, especially when she’s surrounded by shooters, that’s hard coverage. Especially when you have a five-player that picks and pops, too, that can provide some extra challenge. So I thought, especially in the first half, I thought she just ate our lunch, and I thought we did better in the second. But nonetheless, she really just makes them go.”

In addition to her 22 points, Morgan recorded 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block, the latter of which came at the 2:14 marker of the final quarter against All-America center Raegan Beers beneath the basket to prevent Oklahoma from making it a one-possession game.

As was the case in each of the Wildcats’ duels with the Sooners last season — one of which was won in Norman during the regular season, the other of which was lost in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C. — Sunday’s contest was extraordinarily physical, with seven players across both teams committing at least three personal fouls, with four of those called for four each.

Due to Brooks’ hiring in March 2024, and Oklahoma’s moving from the Big 12 to the SEC during the same offseason, the 2025-26 campaign marks both Brooks and Barancyk’s second seasons in the league.

When asked if she was expecting a game this physical, Baranczyk confirmed.

“Every game in the SEC is physical,” Baranczyk said. “I think if you don’t expect it to be physical, you’re in the wrong league. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if this game was more physical than any other game that we’ve played so far. And you know, I’ve only been in here a year, last year and this year, but I don’t, I don’t think there’s a more physical league out there.”

Brooks said he “was really proud” of his team for adjusting to Oklahoma’s speed and flow, even though “it took us a little while to figure out that they were gonna be that aggressive.”

“It’s a collective effort with handling the physicality,” Brooks said. “That’s the most physical basketball team in the country, in my estimation. Just the way that they set screens, the way that they do everything, is extremely physical.”

Kentucky’s 13 fouls on Sunday was its cleanest game played against the Sooners since OU joined the conference; during last season’s regular-season road win — often referred to as Georgia Amoore’s 43-point game — the Wildcats committed 24 fouls, and had three players foul out. In the Wildcats’ SEC Tournament loss to the Sooners in March, UK committed 19 fouls. The Sooners committed fewer fouls — 23 and 15, respectively — in each game.

In Sunday’s win, Kentucky was finally on the right side of the foul count, and drew 22 Sooner fouls.

Despite neither team having a banner day offensively (Oklahoma shot 36% from the floor), Baranczyk credited the Wildcats’ ability to disrupt the Sooners’ offense and capitalize on moments when players like Beers (who finished with 4 fouls) was on the bench.

“Our defense doesn’t count if you foul somebody 22 times, and you put them to the free-throw lines 20 times,” Baranczyk said. “Does that count as good defense? I don’t know. But I think we have to find different ways, especially when Raegan Beers is in foul trouble. We’ve got to find different ways to be able to get something a little bit easier in the paint, and they make it really challenging to do that.”

Strack finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds, 1 assist and 3 blocks. Graduate guard Jordan Obi added 11 points after missing her first five field goal attempts, and posted 6 rebounds and 1 assist.

Freshman point guard Aaliyah Chavez, the No. 3 overall recruit in the class of 2025, led the Sooners with 18 points. Beers added 14, and redshirt senior guard Payton Verhulst scored 13.

Kentucky’s win over Oklahoma served as a bounce-back game following the Wildcats’ first misstep of conference play, Thursday’s 64-51 loss at Alabama.

“We’re tough,” Brooks said. “And I know the look of us, it might be finesse, but we’re a resilient group. We’re tough, and we can play that way. It’s not fun, you know, we don’t want to play that way. We want to get out and move, and make it a very enjoyable game. But a game like this, and it’s gonna be several more opponents that we have to play, we’ve got to play like that. And we’ve proven that we can do it.”