Mark Pope (UK Athletics Photo)
Even though Mark Pope does not have his 2025-26 roster finalized at Kentucky that has not stopped two major scheduling wins for the Cats.
Kentucky will host Purdue in an exhibition contest at Rupp Arena on Oct. 24. Game time and television designation will be announced at a later date.
On Dec. 20 in Atlanta, Kentucky will be playing in the CBS Sports Classic but instead of taking on UCLA as originally scheduled the Cats will play St. John’s and coach Rick Pitino. It will be the first meeting between Pope and Pitino and the first meeting between Kentucky and St. John’s since the top-ranked Wildcats beat the Red Storm 81-59 in the SEC-Big East Invitational at Rupp Arena in 2011.
Pope, who played for Pitino at UK, had indicated he would like to have St. John’s on the schedule but the teams had not been able to work out a home-and-home setup but now will get to play in the CBS Sports Classic.
Kentucky will get a major boost going into the season from the exhibition game against Purdue which will not count towards official records or statistics.
The Boilermakers have reached the NCAA Sweet 16 in consecutive seasons and return All-America guard Braden Smith, who became only the second player in NCAA history to have at least 500 points, 300 assists and 150 rebounds in a single season last year (Jo Morant was the only other player to have done that). Smith became the first Big Ten player to have 300 or more assists in a single year.
Purdue coach Matt Painter has a career record of 496-220 and has led the Boilermakers to eight Sweet 16s, the seventh most among active head coaches. Purdue has made the NCAA Tournament 16 times in the last 18 seasons.
Kentucky returns Collin Chandler, Brandon Garrison and Trent Noah off last season’s 24-12 team that had wins over an NCAA-record-tying eight Associated Press Top 15 foes.
Chandler shot 12 for 23 (52.2 percent) from 3-point range over his final six games – all against NCAA Tournament teams. Garrison produced seven double-figure scoring efforts and shot 50.9 percent from the field in 17.3 minutes per game as a sophomore, while Noah’s breakthrough performance came in an 11-point effort in an upset of No. 5 Tennessee at home.
Kentucky has a top five transfer portal class — St. John’s currently has the No. 1 class. The Cats will add 2025 national champion Denzel Aberdeen of Florida, a two-time NCAA Sweet 16 participant in Alabama’s Mouhamed Dioubate, an All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer in Pitt’s Jaland Lowe, National Defensive Player of the Year late season finalist Jayden Quaintance from Arizona State and Kam Williams from Tulane who earned American Athletic Conference All-Freshman Team honors.
The Kentucky release on the returning roster did not mention Otega Oweh, who has put his name into the NBA Draft while retaining his collegiate eligibility. However, it did include Lowe who also has put his name into the draft.
The Cats also have two dynamic incoming freshmen in Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno, who were both members of Team USA at the Nike Hoop Summit in April.
4 Responses
That Purdue game is perfect and exactly the reason I love Pope. Most coaches would be scared of a exhibition like this because if you lose it gets the fan base rattled before the year actually starts. I think its very smart. You can start working on your rotation before you even play a game. I would play everyone and play every combination you can play to see who plays the best together. You don’t necessarily put your best 5 guys out there you put who plays the best together. You can go with a platoon system for this team which the only bad thing about a platoon system is I don’t think you take out the guys who are hot at shooting. If they are hot leave them on the floor but we are so deep I don’t know how we are going to spread the minutes around. We have 3 superstars on this team then a bunch of guys who will be superstars. Oweh Lowe and JQ are your superstars. Mo D Garrison Williams and Aberdeen are knocking on the door. Chandler and Noah should be improved and Moreno Johnson and the Croatian are going to have show me something.
This will be a good learning experience for all. Pope will get a chance to see what he has and what needs work before we get into the schedule. It will show the team what it will take to win at Kentucky’s level. It improves our chance of beating Michigan State in the Champions Classic.
I can’t wait until we play St. Johns. That’s going to be a hell of a game. St Johns has a former Kentucky player on the roster and of course Pitino was the king of the castle at one time in Lexington. 30 years since the 95-96 championship team. Coach vs Captain. Louisville will also be improved and will most likely be a top 10 maybe top 5 team. Our non conference schedule will definitely have us ready to go to war in the sec this year. We have a bunch of bruises that hate to lose and have all been apart of winning teams except maybe Lowe and Williams everyone else played for decent teams that win. I love our chances this year more than I have in over 5 years. Chandler is going to surprise alot of people this year!
It sure should be Terry