Kentucky Basketball: Ranking Wildcats 2019-20 non-conference opponents

Kentucky Basketball has one of the nation’s toughest non-conference schedules in 2019-20 with numerous tests. Here’s how we rank all 13 future opponents.

As is tradition, Kentucky basketball enters the 2019-20 season with national championship aspirations. Head coach John Calipari is bringing in another elite recruiting class to go along with several key returners from last year’s team, namely Ashton Hagans, Immanuel Quickley, and EJ Montgomery.

Of course, Kentucky also traditionally plays one of the country’s toughest non-conference schedules on an annual basis, and that won’t be any different this year.

Nearly half of their opponents hail from Power 6 conferences and four – Ohio State, Texas Tech, Louisville, and Michigan State – will be ranked in the preseason AP poll.

The game against the Red Raiders in January (part of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge) is the only true road game on UK’s non-conference slate, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be testing themselves outside of Lexington. Three of their games will be played on a neutral court, including back-to-back games in December in Las Vegas against Utah and Ohio State. The other will be a top-five showdown against the Spartans in what could be a Final Four preview.

Kentucky will be tested early and often prior to SEC play, but they also have a few cupcakes on their schedule – particularly in November.

Which non-conference games will be the toughest for UK? Here is our ranking of all 13 of their non-conference opponents.