Category: College Basketball

Watching Kentucky men’s basketball used to feel special to me.

The early part of Hall of Fame coach John Calipari’s tenure (2009-2024) in Lexington epitomized what UK basketball is supposed to look like on an annual basis.

Recall the 2009-2010 season with John Wall and Demarcus Cousins. Recall Brandon Knight’s game winning jumper in the Sweet 16 against Ohio State and a dagger three-pointer by Deandre Liggins in the final minute against North Carolina in the Elite Eight of the 2011 NCAA tournament.

Think back to the 2012 national championship over Kansas, the three consecutive game-winning triples by Aaron Harrison against Louisville (Sweet 16), Michigan (Elite Eight) and Wisconsin (Final Four) in the 2014 tournament and almost going 40-0 in the 2014-2015 campaign.

Those were the times when Kentucky proved themselves worthy of the college basketball “blue blood” label, dominated the competition, and gave their fans unforgettable memories on a consistent basis.

Times just don’t feel like that anymore. Long gone are the days when the Wildcats stumbled upon adversity and prevailed every time.

The Cats went 9-16 in 2020-2021. Their NCAA tournament seeds of second in 2022 (loss to St. Peters) and third in the 2024 tourney (loss to Oakland) proved meaningless with first round defeats.

Kentucky fell to the only four ranked squads it has faced off against this year.

The injury bug bit them early this season, but there were still capable players on the roster. UK was pummeled by Louisville and Michigan State before a second half scoring drought of over 10 minutes played a huge part in their close 67-64 defeat at home to North Carolina on Tuesday.

UK wrapped up an embarrassing 94-59 loss to 11th-ranked Gonzaga inside Bridgestone Arena in Nashville when I finished this column. The Cats are fell to 5-4 and are in danger of possibly falling out of the top 25.

That’s why Kentucky basketball doesn’t feel special anymore. Those early 2010’s UK teams I talked about would have found ways to come through in the moments that mattered most.

The Cats stepped in a positive direction last year with a Sweet 16 appearance in coach Mark Pope’s first season before having an off night against Southeastern Conference foe Tennessee.

Some of those early Calipari squads would have won that game and at least got to the Final Four. That’s another reason why Kentucky basketball hasn’t felt like Kentucky basketball in a long time.

All of these failures are sad for me as a UK hoops fanatic. This reality surely stinks for every Wildcat supporter in general.

I hope Kentucky can return to its glory days soon and allow me and every other Wildcat supporter to recapture the feeling that this program will win no matter what. Fans across the bluegrass state love basketball and are passionate. They deserve a championship-caliber team.

But it doesn’t seem like we will see that basketball team any time soon. Hopefully this program can re-discover the winning spirit that used to make them memorable.

After losing to top 25 teams Louisville and Michigan State early on this season, the 18th-ranked Kentucky men’s basketball team lost to a third consecutive ranked squad on Tuesday with a 67-64 home defeat at the hands of No. 16 North Carolina in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

Both squads didn’t play great. But one statistic killed the Wildcats.

Coach Mark Pope’s club went 10:25 without a field goal in the second half to achieve their longest scoring drought in at least eight seasons.

Kentucky jumped in front 59-58 on a layup by Otega Oweh with 2:40 left to end the cold spell. It didn’t matter.

The Tar Heels’ Derek Dixon buried a three-pointer to put North Carolina ahead 64-62 with 53 seconds remaining. UK’s Colin Chandler converted a layup to make it 64-64 with 36 seconds on the clock but Dixon hurt the Cats once more with a go-ahead bucket with 16 seconds left to put UNC up 66-64.

Chandler missed a layup on the other end of the floor and North Carolina left Lexington victorious.

Kentucky made just one of their 13 attempts from beyond-the-arc. They lost despite holding the Tar Heels to 41 percent shooting while registering a 43 percent clip from the field themselves. North Carolina outrebounded the Wildcats 41-30.

Oweh paced UK with 16 points while grabbing four rebounds and two assists. Chandler (12 points, two rebounds, one assist) and Denzel Aberdeen (10, four, four) also scored in double digits for the Wildcats.

Henri Veesaar (17 points, 13 rebounds) and Caleb Wilson (15, 12) led the Tar Heels with a double-double each. The latter logged six assists, and UNC’s Luka Bogavac scored 12 points and knocked down three triples while adding four rebounds and two assists.

Kentucky will look to finally get a marquee win on their resume Friday when they face 11th-ranked Gonzaga at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville for Music City Madness. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. on ESPN2.

Tuesday night’s home matchup against 16th-ranked North Carolina in the ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge isn’t the only big non-conference rivalry game that awaits the No. 18 Kentucky basketball team in the short-term future.

22nd-ranked Indiana is another rival that second year coach Mark Pope’s Wildcats will host at Rupp Arena on Dec. 13. Kentucky leads the all-time series against the Hoosiers 32-25.

As a Wildcat fan, I unfortunately remember this series mostly for the buzzer-beating three-pointer that unranked Indiana’s Christian Watford hit to defeat top-ranked Kentucky 73-72 on Dec. 10, 2011, inside Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Luckily, UK got their revenge against the Hoosiers later that season by winning a high scoring 102-90 affair in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament before going on to defeat Kansas for the national championship.

It’s also fun for college basketball fans whenever Kentucky battles Indiana on the court.

Dec. 13 will mark the first time UK and IU have met in hoops since a 73-67 Hoosier win over the Cats in the second round of the NCAA tourney on Mar. 19, 2016. It’s good to see the rivalry renewed after a long time.

Who doesn’t like rivalry games? They tend to bring out friendly trash talk and high-level intensity from players and fans which is always entertaining to see. This upcoming matchup between Kentucky and Indiana should be another one to watch.

I am stoked for Kentucky men’s basketball’s matchup against North Carolina in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. inside the Wildcats’ Rupp Arena.

I think it’s always good for basketball when the Cats and Tar Heels meet up on the hardwood.

A sense of nostalgia quickly engulfs me whenever they are duking it out on the court. That’s why they should make it a point to play every season.

North Carolina leads the all-time series 25-18 but Kentucky has won eight of their last 12 games against the Heels dating back to 2009. The most recent matchup between the two squads involved Kentucky edging out an 87-83 win on Dec. 16, 2023, in Atlanta (Ga.).

But there are three other matchups earlier in this series that I remember much more fondly.

I was in seventh grade when fifth-ranked UK defeated No. 10 UNC 68-66 at Rupp on Dec. 5, 2009. First-year head coach and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer John Calipari was just beginning his 15-season tenure as the Cats’ head man.

Freshman superstar John Wall went coast-to-coast to throw down a ferocious dunk and made an acrobatic reverse layup in back-to-back possessions early on. Kentucky then rocketed to a 30-11 first half cushion after falling behind 9-2 early.

After two dismal seasons under Billy Gillispie, there was a sense among Wildcat fans that Kentucky basketball was “back” at that point and was living up to its reputation as “the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball.”

Kentucky and North Carolina met again in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament on Mar. 27, 2011.

Leading 70-69 in the final minute, the Wildcats’ DeAndre Liggins buried a corner three-pointer to put UK up 73-69 with 35.6 seconds left.

That was special. It proved to be the dagger as the Tar Heels didn’t score again, and the Cats prevailed 76-69 to move on to the Final Four in Houston.

Fast forward to Dec. 3, 2011, back at Rupp Arena. The top-ranked and eventual national champion Wildcats were hosting fifth-ranked UNC.

Trailing 73-72 in the final seconds, the Heels had the ball and a chance to win. But Kentucky superstar freshman Anthony Davis blocked a game-winning shot attempt by North Carolina’s John Henson and the Cats emerged victorious. The fans dressed in Kentucky blue were all going crazy.

Memories like those make me excited for the renewal of this rivalry on Tuesday night even if Luke Maye hit a game-winner to beat Kentucky in the 2017 Elite Eight.

Will both teams give us another memorable game or moment in the ACC/SEC Challenge? We can only hope so.

The University of Kentucky men’s basketball team didn’t start well against visiting Tennessee Tech (3-4) on Wednesday night inside the Wildcats’ Rupp Arena, but the hosts eventually found a groove.

The Golden Eagles held a surprising 25-23 lead with 7:18 left in the first half but Kentucky gained command quickly after as they ended the half on a furious 20-3 run and went into the locker room ahead 43-28.

Second year head coach Mark Pope’s squad didn’t let up in the final 20 minutes as their advantage ballooned to as many as 50 points.

Otega Oweh (6-11 shooting, two rebounds, three assists) and Denzel Aberdeen (6-10, two, four) each scored 16 points while the latter buried four of his six three-point attempts. Trent Noah poured in 16 points off the bench while drilling four triples, grabbing six rebounds, and dishing out an assist.

Colin Chandler tallied 14 points for the Wildcats and hit six of his 11 shots while knocking down two threes with five boards and five assists and Malachi Moreno registered a double-double with 13 points, 11 boards, and three assists on 4 of 5 shooting.

Bench players Ja’Quavian Florence (11 points, 5-12 shooting, 1-4 3PT, two rebounds, one assist) and Dani Pounds (10 points, 4-10 shooting, 2-3 3PT, two boards) paced the Golden Eagles.

Kentucky (39-66) shot 59 percent from the field and hit 15 of their 30 attempts from beyond-the-arc.

The Wildcats outrebounded Tennessee Tech 48-27 while also having the edge in assists (27-8), fast break points (27-10) and points in the paint (48-24) over the Golden Eagles.

19th-ranked Kentucky now takes its 5-2 record into an important rivalry matchup back at home on Tuesday against 16th-ranked North Carolina in the ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge. Tipoff is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on ESPN.

The University of Kentucky men’s basketball team was ranked 12th in the college hoops AP Top 25 poll last week before falling to 19th this week.

Their performances against Louisville and Michigan State justify a drop like that.

Kentucky has to prove even without Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance that they can fare well against the good teams on their schedule and come away with the win. They’ve failed to do that early on this season.

They won’t get a chance to prove themselves in that regard tonight as they host Tennessee Tech. But let’s see what happens when they host 16th-ranked North Carolina on Dec. 2 in the renewal of an old rivalry.

I believe that matchup against the Tar Heels will serve as another litmus test for the Wildcats and will give the “Big Blue Nation” and its fanbase more of a sample size as to where this team really stands.

In my opinion, former Bowling Green State University head coach, Indiana University assistant and interim head coach as well as college basketball color commentator and radio host Dan Dakich is an example of how not to be as someone who talks about sports for a living.

The 12th-ranked Kentucky men’s basketball team fell 83-66 to 17th-ranked Michigan State on Tuesday in the Champions Classic in New York City, and Dakich, who is now the host of “Don’t @ Me” on Fox Sports Outkick, had some choice words for the Wildcats and their fanbase on his Wednesday show.

Dakich called out Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones, saying he is Kentucky’s “guru of stupidity” while mentioning that he and the people at KSR “don’t know jack shit about basketball.”

Dakich also called Kentucky’s fanbase an insecure one, saying they “bitch, whine, moan, and they’re stupid.”

Finally, he called out the team by saying that “in an era where everyone pays players, Kentucky is irrelevant.”

I mean, if you want to say a team is irrelevant, fine. That’s your choice. However, if you’re going to have a career talking about sports, you can and should show way more class and professionalism than calling anyone stupid or using profanity like Dakich used during his rant on Kentucky.

I saw this video of Dakich on X. If you go back and watch the video, he has an Indiana jersey hanging in the background. I saw someone comment that he has “always been a UK hater.” Dakich even explains in the video that he learned to hate Kentucky because of their fans.

It’s okay to not like a team. But if you have a platform like he does and thousands of people if not millions can see and hear your opinions whenever you post them, it will behoove you to not go as overboard as Dakich did here.

Not that you should behave this way even with a small platform or no platform, because professionalism should be something every journalist always strives to exemplify, but Dakich should know better being in the position he’s in.

The start of this 2025-2026 season has not been ideal for the Kentucky men’s basketball team.

I heard Kentucky used $22 in NIL money to acquire the likes of Pittsburgh’s Jaland Lowe (currently dealing with a potential season-ending shoulder injury) and Arizona State’s Jayden Quaintance (recovering from a torn ACL), but injuries are unfortunately a part of the game and out of the team’s control.

However, I heard they also used that money to enhance their roster for this season by adding players such as Florida’s Denzel Aberdeen, Tulane’s Kam Williams, and Alabama’s Mouhamed Dioubate.

Yes, they’re only five games into the season, and it’s a long year where anything can happen.

So far, however, it doesn’t seem like all that money that was supposedly invested to bolster the roster has made a significant difference.

Kentucky has been throttled by the only two good teams they have played this year.

They lost 96-88 at Louisville on Nov. 11, (then ranked 12th but now ranked sixth) but the Wildcats trailed by 18 at one point in the first half and were even down 20 almost midway through the second half.

Then, on Tuesday in the Champions Classic against 17th-ranked Michigan State inside New York City’s Madison Square Garden, the Wildcats were again pummeled 83-66 as they trailed the Spartans 44-27 at the break before being behind 80-56 late in that contest.

Kentucky’s only three wins this year are against Nicholls, Valparaiso, and Eastern Illinois.

Therefore, it begs to be asked: Can the Wildcats beat the good teams on this season’s schedule?

I have confidence in second-year head coach Mark Pope. He only had four weeks or so to put together a roster before last season, and the Wildcats ended up advancing to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.

Last year, Kentucky scored eight wins against teams ranked in the top 25. That included victories against eventual national champion Florida as well as Duke, Gonzaga, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Tennessee twice.

But this year’s team is different than last year’s.

Early on in this new campaign, there seems to have been some chemistry issues with this squad.

Case in point: ESPN’s Kris Budden reported that, during the game against Michigan State Tuesday, players were “barking at each other” in the timeout down 14, which got Pope to step in and tell them to get on the same page.

Will Kentucky’s players put aside their differences, learn to come together as one and gel with the best interests of the team and their long-term chances in mind?

I think the coach is up to the task of righting the ship. As far as the players, that remains to be seen.

Well, that was a surprise.

The 12th-ranked Kentucky men’s basketball team was pummeled 83-66 by 17th-ranked Michigan State in the Champions Classic inside New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.

The Spartans, who entered the game shooting 21.7 percent from three-point range, were on fire from three to start the contest and ended up making 11 of 22 shots from downtown.

Things quickly got dire for the Wildcats as they fell behind 31-19 in the first half before trailing 44-27 at halftime.

Kentucky was within 10 of Michigan State at 60-50 with 9:37 left in the game, but the Spartans went on to lead by as many as 24 at 80-56 later on.

Michigan State’s Jaxon Kohler was a force, leading the Spartans with 20 points while grabbing five rebounds, dishing out two assists and burying two triples.

Trey Fort of the Spartans also scored in double figures with 13 points while knocking down three treys with two boards and one assist.

Otega Oweh led Kentucky with 12 points, four rebounds and three assists. Mouhamed Dioubate (two rebounds), Collin Chandler (four rebounds, one assist), and Denzel Aberdeen (one rebound, two assists) each tallied 10 points for the Wildcats.

Michigan State shot 50 percent from the field (32-64) while Kentucky shot 35 percent (20-57). The Spartans also had the edge in rebounds (42-28) and assists (25-13).