Kentucky Basketball: 2024-25 season preview for the Wildcats
By Joey Loose
Schedule Outlook
Pope settles into his new gig with a pair of mid-major home dates, but the pressure ramps up pretty quickly in the season’s second week. The Wildcats head to Atlanta for the Champions Classic on November 12th for a highly-anticipated battle with Duke.
Kentucky then hosts three straight games as part of the BBN Invitational, though they shouldn’t have too much challenge with Lipscomb, Jackson State, and Western Kentucky. They have one last home game in November before things get a little spicier in December.
On December 3rd, they’ll head to Clemson for the ACC/SEC Challenge, getting a road date with a team that made the Elite Eight last year. Four days later, the Wildcats are off to Seattle for an even tougher game against Gonzaga. Their rivalry contest against Louisville comes at Rupp Arena on December 14th, while a week later they’re in New York City for the CBS Sports Classic and a look at Ohio State.
Easy nights in SEC play are few and far between, and the action starts on January 4th against Florida, their only look at the Gators. The Wildcats only get a single look at most of their league rivals, and actually will only play new SEC schools Oklahoma and Texas on the road. However, they’ll still get two battles each with Alabama and Tennessee, two of the league’s best programs.
One game circled on most calendars will come on February 1st, as John Calipari and Arkansas return to Lexington for quite a reunion for this fan base. That game comes during a tough stretch, though there aren’t exactly easy stretches in this league. Early March sees their only look at Auburn (at home) before Senior Night against LSU on March 4th, with the regular season ending a few days after that.