Syracuse men's basketball to play at Oklahoma in ACC/SEC Challenge
Syracuse will open December with a road trip to Oklahoma, a rare ACC/SEC Challenge test that adds another measuring stick to the Orange's 2026-27 slate.
Syracuse men’s basketball just picked up a road game that should say plenty about how the Orange are viewed heading into December. Gerry McNamara’s team will travel to Oklahoma on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2026, for Syracuse’s first ACC/SEC Challenge trip to Norman, Okla., and the matchup gives the Orange an early chance to gauge themselves against a Power conference opponent in a hostile building.
The game will be played at the Lloyd Noble Center and is part of the fourth annual ACC/SEC Challenge, announced June 5 by the Atlantic Coast Conference, ESPN and the Southeastern Conference. In 2026, the men’s challenge is set for Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 1-2, with each league hosting eight games after the event expanded to 16 matchups following conference realignment. For Syracuse, the assignment adds another high-end road test to a schedule that will shape how the program is judged nationally before ACC play settles in.
The Orange and Sooners have met four times before and split those games 2-2, with the series reaching back more than 75 years. Syracuse won the first meeting, 55-49, at home on Dec. 23, 1948. Oklahoma won the most recent matchup, 84-71, in the NCAA tournament on March 27, 2009. That history gives this game a familiar edge: a series that has stayed even, but one that has not been renewed often enough to lose its pull.
The matchup also lands at a useful point in the calendar for Syracuse fans who watch the Orange as a national brand, not just a local one. A trip to Oklahoma is the kind of game that sharpens schedule strength, especially in a challenge format designed to match the ACC against the SEC. Syracuse University Athletics already has the game listed on its 2026-27 men’s basketball schedule, signaling that the December road trip is now a fixed part of the Orange’s early-season path.
Syracuse women’s basketball will also draw Oklahoma in the women’s ACC/SEC Challenge, creating a Syracuse-Oklahoma doubleheader of sorts for local followers. The women will host the Sooners on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, at the JMA Wireless Dome, giving the city back-to-back chances to measure both programs against the same opponent in the same week.
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