UK suffers eighth loss as No. 1 team under Calipari. Evansville is the worst.
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An out-of-the-blue defeat: Evansville 67, No. 1 Kentucky 64
Read all of the Herald-Leader’s coverage on Kentucky.com of the Wildcats’ unexpected defeat in Rupp Arena at the hands of former UK player Walter McCarty and his Evansville Purple Aces on Tuesday night.
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Kentucky coming into Tuesday was 221-30 as the Associated Press’ No. 1 team. The 31st loss was by far the most shocking.
UK before losing to Evansville had never lost at home as the nation’s No. 1 team to a team that, by today’s standards, is considered a non-Power Five program. The Wildcats’ previous six losses to schools that fit that criteria all occurred at neutral sites, according to Big Blue History.
Evansville ended Kentucky’s 52-game win streak against unranked, non-conference opponents.
Those losses were to Loyola-Chicago (1949 NIT in New York); St. Louis (1950 in New Orleans); St. Louis (1951 in New Orleans); St. John’s (1952 NCAA East Regional finals in Raleigh, N.C.); Texas Western (1966 NCAA championship game in College Park, Md.); and Jacksonville (1970 NCAA Mideast Regional finals in Columbus, Ohio)
Evansville, a Missouri Valley Conference team, entered as a 25-point underdog and, unlike several of the aforementioned teams, was not nationally recognized as a formidable program coming into the game. It became the third unranked team to defeat a No. 1 UK team at Rupp Arena, joining Georgia Tech (1955) and Auburn (1988).
Kentucky as the No. 1 team at home had lost only one other time, to UCLA in 2016. The loss was the Cats’ most recent game as the No. 1 program and their first home loss to a non-Southeastern Conference opponent as the No. 1 team. Tuesday’s was their second home loss at the No. 1 team under John Calipari.
The Cats fell to 68-8 under Calipari as the nation’s top team. In addition to the 2016 loss to UCLA and Tuesday’s defeat, Calipari’s No. 1 Kentucky teams lost at South Carolina (2010), at Indiana (2011), vs. Vanderbilt (2012 SEC Tournament championship), vs. Michigan State (2013 Champions Classic), vs. Wisconsin (2015 NCAA Final Four) and at UCLA (2015).
Click here to view UK’s all-time record as the AP’s No. 1 team.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 9:04 PM.
