Temper flared during last season's Kentucky-Louisville game in Rupp Arena. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky and Louisville playing basketball against each other before the Kentucky-Louisville football game that ends regular-season play for both teams. Kentucky and Louisville opening the season by playing each other.
Sounds ridiculous? Probably does but both could happen.
Kentucky announced Wednesday that the annual Battle of the Bluegrass will be Tuesday, Nov. 11, at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville. The season officially opens on Nov. 3 but it would not be surprising to see this be the season opening game for both teams and to be featured on ESPN.
The game traditionally has been played in December, but now a likely top-10 showdown will help showcase the start of the college basketball season. Kentucky stats guru Corey Price said the only UK-Louisville games played in November occurred in 1983 and 1993. Since then all but five of the games have been played in December and those were all played in early January.
Kentucky won last season’s game 93-85 in Rupp Arena as coaches Mark Pope of UK and Pat Kelsey of Louisville got their first taste of the rivalry as a head coach.
Kentucky and Louisville both played in the NCAA Tournament last season despite having totally rebuilt rosters. ESPN has Louisville ranked No. 3 behind Houston and Purdue in its early 2025-26 ranks while Kentucky is No. 6.
Louisville returns five players from its 27-8 team that lost in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament to Creighton in Rupp Arena. The Cards have added five impressive newcomers as Kelsey has the No. 3 transfer portal class and the No. 12 overall recruiting class according to 247Sports. Pope’s transfer class is ranked No. 4 overall.
Louisville also has non-conference games against Tennessee (Dec. 16) and Indiana (Dec. 6. There has also been speculation that the Cards will play St. John’s.
Kentucky definitely will play against coach Rick Pitino and St. John’s Dec. 20 in Atlanta in the CBS Sports Classic. The Cats will also face Michigan State Nov. 18 in Madison Square Garden, Gonzaga Dec. 5 in Nashville, Indiana Dec. 13 in Rupp Arena, Bellarmine Dec. 23 in Rupp Arena and Purdue Oct. 24 in an exhibition game. All are top 20 teams except Bellarmine.
Both Kentucky and Louisville will have games in the SEC/ACC Challenge as well.
However, no matter how the entire schedule shakes out, having a UK-Louisville basketball game so early in November just doesn’t seem right. Teams will still be learning how to play together but the Cards obviously have reasons for wanting to play early since it is their home game and it should really not be a surprise that Pope was willing to do what it took to make sure the game gets played.
4 Responses
Playing Michigan State and Louisville in the first 2 weeks of November could be good and bad. It will show us how well prepared the team is and point out issues that still need to be addressed. The opposing teams will have the same challenges. I am not a fan of playing a dozen cupcake games to start the season. Adding the exhibition game against Purdue will put us to the test like the Maui Invitational did UConn last year, but this is how you get better. If we can avoid injuries, we will be battle tested come SEC play given that we will also play Indiana and St. Johns in December. This team will be even more fun to watch than last year’s as this one will have some defensive toughness that was too often missing last year. It will also be a single digit loss team, something we haven’t seen in a while. UK basketball is in good hands. Go CATS!!!
We shall see! Its a new beginning for both Teams!
yes it will be
Louisville is actually ranked higher than Kentucky. Which I don’t know how in the heck that’s possible. Especially if we return Oweh. They aren’t returning that much production from last year so I don’t understand there ranking so far. I do believe both Kentucky and Louisville will be deeper this year compared to last year. I actually like the game being early in the year. I do believe the rivalry game will be close this year.. Either team can win. Whoever has the better game will win. If Louisville beats us in basketball and football again its going to be a very long year.