UK-Gonzaga will be a battle of top-10 teams. Cats fans haven’t celebrated one in years.
The next game on Kentucky’s schedule — a late-night clash with Gonzaga in Seattle on Saturday — will be a treat for all college basketball fans.
And it will be a relatively rare occasion for those who follow the Wildcats.
UK vs. Gonzaga is a battle of top-10 teams, with Mark Pope’s Cats ranked at No. 4 in the latest AP Top 25 poll and the Zags coming in at No. 7 nationally.
Kentucky plays plenty of big games throughout the season — and fans always get up for the likes of Louisville, North Carolina, Kansas and others, no matter where the teams are ranked — but this is the kind of matchup that captures the attention of any casual follower of the sport who happens to be scrolling through the schedule and looking for something to watch.
It’s been more than five years since the Cats have come out on top in such a game.
UK has lost its last five contests in which both teams were ranked in the top 10 nationally.
▪ No. 5 Tennessee 103, No. 10 Kentucky 92 (Feb. 3, 2024) — The rival Vols came into Rupp and took a double-digit lead before the first TV timeout, controlling the game from the start and leaving the Cats with plenty of soul-searching to do afterward.
▪ No. 2 Gonzaga 88, No. 4 Kentucky 72 (Nov. 20, 2022) — In front of a rowdy, pro-Zags crowd in the supposedly neutral-site Spokane Arena, the Wildcats were roundly dominated, a frustrating loss in the first edition of this six-game series.
▪ No. 9 Tennessee 69, No. 5 Kentucky 62 (March 12, 2022) — The Cats went into the SEC Tournament in Tampa with a real chance at a 1 seed in March Madness. Instead, UK shot 2-for-20 from 3-point range and lost to the Vols in the semifinals. (Less than a week later, the Cats fell to Saint Peter’s in a shocking NCAA Tournament upset.)
▪ No. 9 Duke 79, No. 10 Kentucky 71 (Nov. 9, 2021) — In his first game as a UK player, Oscar Tshiebwe tallied 17 points and 20 rebounds in Madison Square Garden, but the Wildcats couldn’t get past Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, the Hall of Fame coach improving his career record vs. Kentucky to 7-2 in his final meeting with the Cats.
▪ No. 5 Ohio State 71, No. 6 Kentucky 65 (Dec. 21, 2019) — The Cats concluded a terrible trip to Las Vegas — they were upset by Utah three days before this — with a loss to the Buckeyes in the CBS Sports Classic.
The last time UK won a game featuring two teams ranked in the top 10? In the 2019-20 season opener, the No. 2-ranked Wildcats defeated No. 1-ranked Michigan State 69-62 in the Champions Classic in New York, with Tyrese Maxey going for 26 points in his first college game.
Kentucky also lost its two games in which both teams were ranked in the top 10 before that one — both of those defeats involved Tennessee — so the Cats have lost seven of their last eight such matchups heading into Saturday night.
It’s another stat that underlines the lack of high-level success toward the end of John Calipari’s tenure as Kentucky’s coach, compared to his first several seasons on the job.
Calipari was 16-16 overall in games involving two top-10 teams during his 15-year run as the Wildcats’ coach. But he was 1-7 over his last eight games and 4-12 in his final 16 games. Calipari won six of his first seven such games and went 12-4 in top-10 battles to start his UK career.
Of course, Calipari’s teams did pull some upsets toward the end, including a win at No. 4 Tennessee in what ended up being his final victory as Kentucky’s coach, but the Cats weren’t ranked in the top 10 for any of those. In most, they were playing from the underdog role.
Pope also pulled off an upset in his first game against a top-10 team as UK’s head coach — the 77-72 victory over then-No. 6 Duke in the Champions Classic last month — but the matchup against Gonzaga on Saturday night will be his first with both sides ranked that highly.
In fact, it’ll be the first such game in his coaching career. Pope spent his first four years as a head coach at Utah Valley — a program that has never been in the Top 25 — and his previous five seasons came at BYU, which was ranked no higher than 12th during Pope’s tenure.
Coming into this season Pope was 2-12 against top-10 teams as a head coach. He was 2-10 in such games at BYU, with his first victory coming over No. 2 Gonzaga during his first season with the Cougars. (The other was a win over No. 7 Kansas last season.)
Pope’s overall record vs. the Zags is 1-9, that upset in 2020 his lone victory over Mark Few. And his next meeting with Gonzaga will come immediately after his first loss as Kentucky’s coach — a 70-66 defeat at Clemson in the SEC/ACC Challenge on Tuesday night.
Perhaps this time around — in the latest battle of top 10s involving Kentucky — the Cats will have reason to celebrate at the end.
Saturday
No. 4 Kentucky vs. No. 7 Gonzaga
Where: Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle
When: 10 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 7-1, Gonzaga 7-1
Series: Gonzaga leads 2-1
Last meeting: Gonzaga won 89-85 on Feb. 10, 2024, in Lexington
