**Otega Oweh Breaks a Decade-Old Record in Kentucky’s Heart-Stopping Victory Over Bellarmine**

The final seconds ticked off the Rupp Arena clock on December 23, 2025, and the Kentucky Wildcats had just survived one of the most dramatic, nerve-shredding games of the young season.

The scoreboard read 99-98 in favor of the home team, but the real story belonged to senior guard Otega Oweh.

With 10 points, a career-high 10 assists, 8 rebounds, 2 steals, and a team-best +14 plus-minus, Oweh had not only willed Kentucky to a razor-thin win over plucky Bellarmine—he had also shattered a program record that had stood untouched for exactly ten years.

It was the second time in Wildcats history that a player had posted at least 10 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds in a single game. The first? De’Aaron Fox, who accomplished the feat against Arizona State back on December 22, 2015—almost to the day a decade earlier.

When the stat sheet was finalized and the record flashed across the arena videoboard, a roar rose from the 20,000-plus blue-clad faithful. For many in the crowd, the moment felt like a passing of the torch: Fox’s lightning-quick, one-man fast-break era giving way to Oweh’s more measured, all-court mastery.

The game itself had been anything but predictable. Bellarmine, the plucky ASUN program coached by Doug Davenport, arrived in Lexington as heavy underdogs but played with the fearlessness of a team that had nothing to lose.

They pushed the pace, knocked down open threes, and refused to let Kentucky pull away. The Knights led by as many as seven in the first half and were still within striking distance late in the second, trailing 88-84 with under four minutes to play.

That’s when Oweh took over. With point guard Jaland Lowe sidelined for shoulder management, the Wildcats needed someone to orchestrate the offense, and Oweh answered the call.

He found Mouhamed Dioubate for an and-one layup, kicked out to Kam Williams for a corner three that splashed clean, then threaded a bounce pass through traffic to Karter Knox for an easy finish in transition.

Each possession seemed to end with Oweh’s fingerprints: a no-look feed, a drive-and-kick, a quick touch pass that turned a simple screen into a wide-open look.

“He sees things before they happen,” head coach Mark Pope said afterward, still catching his breath. “Tonight wasn’t just about the numbers. It was about the timing, the trust, the calmness under pressure. That’s what separates good players from great ones.”

Williams, the sophomore sharpshooter who had been red-hot all night, finished with a career-high 26 points, including 8-of-10 from three-point range—a mark that tied the program record for most threes made by a Wildcat in a single game since Immanuel Quickley’s outburst in 2020.

Dioubate added 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting, providing the interior presence that opened up the perimeter for Kentucky’s season-high 16 made threes.

But it was Oweh’s stat line that told the deeper story. Ten assists in a game where Kentucky shot 53 percent from deep doesn’t happen by accident. He averaged nearly a pass per minute in the second half, reading Bellarmine’s defensive rotations and punishing every over-help with surgical precision.

His eight rebounds—two of them offensive—came at critical junctures, including a putback that kept a possession alive during a tense 2-0 stretch in the final minute.

The drama peaked with 12 seconds left. Bellarmine had clawed within one on a tough pull-up jumper by their leading scorer.

Kentucky inbounded to Oweh, who immediately attacked the left side, drew two defenders, and flipped a soft lob to Dioubate for a contested layup that rattled in with 3.8 seconds to go. Bellarmine’s desperation heave at the buzzer fell short, and Rupp Arena erupted.

Postgame, the locker room was a mix of exhaustion and elation. Players mobbed Oweh as soon as he walked through the door. “Man, you broke Fox’s record on Fox’s day,” one teammate shouted, referencing the eerie ten-year anniversary. Oweh, ever understated, just smiled and shook his head.

“I didn’t even know about the record until y’all told me,” he admitted. “I was just trying to win the game.”

For Oweh, the performance capped a remarkable personal arc. The preseason SEC Player of the Year had started the season quietly, letting younger teammates take the spotlight while he quietly filled gaps—defending the opponent’s best player, crashing the glass, making the right play.

But as the non-conference schedule wore on, the 6-foot-5 guard began to show why so many scouts still project him as a first-round NBA talent. He entered the Bellarmine game averaging 14.5 points per game while leading the team in scoring consistency, having reached double figures in every contest.

The record-breaking night also came at a pivotal moment for the program. At 9-4, Kentucky had already faced early-season turbulence—close losses to ranked opponents, injuries to key rotation players—but the four-game winning streak leading into Christmas felt like a turning point.

Pope’s up-tempo, spacing-heavy system was finally clicking, and Oweh was emerging as the steady heartbeat.

Across social media, #BBN lit up with reaction. Clips of Oweh’s passes circulated endlessly: the no-look dime to Williams in the corner, the skip pass over the top to Knox for a transition three, the instinctive dish to Dioubate under the rim.

Analysts began using words like “floor general” and “point-forward” to describe him. Some even floated the idea that he could be the missing piece Kentucky has searched for since the days of Fox and the late-2010s title contenders.

Bellarmine, meanwhile, left Lexington with heads high. They had pushed one of college basketball’s blue-blood programs to the brink and forced a record-breaking performance just to survive. Coach Davenport, who had drawn headlines earlier in his career for fiery postgame moments, was gracious in defeat.

“We knew we’d have to play perfect to have a chance,” he said. “We didn’t quite get there, but we gave them everything we had.”

As the Wildcats head into the holiday break, the spotlight now shifts to SEC play. With Oweh playing at this level, Kentucky suddenly looks like a team capable of making noise in March.

The record he broke may have belonged to Fox, but the way Oweh earned it—through poise, vision, and quiet dominance—feels distinctly his own.

In a season full of question marks, Otega Oweh provided an emphatic answer on a cold December night in Lexington: when the game is on the line, the Wildcats have a leader who can do it all.