Kentucky basketball drops in national rankings on eve of rematch with No. 5 Tennessee
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Preview: Kentucky vs. Tennessee
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Tuesday night’s Kentucky-Tennessee game in Rupp Arena.
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It’s another big week for the Kentucky men’s basketball team, and it began with another small slide in the national rankings.
The Wildcats fell one spot to No. 15 in the new Associated Press Top 25 poll, which was released Monday afternoon. UK (16-7, 5-5 SEC) endured an ugly 98-84 loss at Ole Miss to start last week before beating South Carolina 80-57 in its return to Rupp Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The Cats have yet to enjoy a two-victory week in conference play. This might be their best shot, but it won’t be easy.
UK gets a rematch with Tennessee — down one spot to No. 5 in the new rankings — on Tuesday night in Rupp Arena. The Cats upset the Vols 78-73 in Knoxville two weeks ago without starting point guard Lamont Butler, who returned from a shoulder injury over the weekend after missing UK’s previous three games.
On Saturday night, the Cats will be back on the road to play Texas, one of the SEC’s newcomers. The Longhorns are off to a 4-7 start in league play but have been ranked this season and were still in the “also receiving votes” category of the AP poll last week.
Auburn remained No. 1 in the new Top 25 rankings Monday despite suffering its first loss of the SEC schedule — a 90-81 defeat at the hands of Florida — and the Tigers have a tough week ahead. They play at Vanderbilt on Tuesday night and then at Alabama on Saturday.
Alabama moved up to No. 2 in Monday’s poll — setting up a 1 vs. 2 matchup in Tuscaloosa on Saturday (4 p.m. EST on ESPN) — and the Crimson Tide were followed by No. 3 Duke and No. 3 Florida — the two programs tying in the voting — and then Tennessee at No. 5.
Auburn has now been ranked No. 1 for five consecutive weeks, and the Tigers received all 62 first-place votes the three previous weeks. They got 34 of those votes Monday, with 21 going to Alabama. At 21-2, the Tigers still have fewer losses than any other high-major team in the country, and Duke and Florida — the co-No. 3 teams — are their only defeats.
Duke (20-3) suffered its first ACC loss Saturday, falling 77-71 at Clemson.
Tennessee beat Missouri and Oklahoma last week, but the Volunteers were jumped by Florida in Monday’s rankings.
Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 Houston, No. 7 Purdue, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 9 St. John’s and No. 10 Iowa State.
Rick Pitino, in his second season as head coach at St. John’s, has the Red Storm in the top 10 for the first time since the final poll of the 1999-2000 season. St. John’s beat Marquette and won at UConn last week and now sits alone at the top of the Big East standings with a 12-1 record.
Next up in the rankings: No. 11 Michigan State, No. 12 Texas Tech, No. 13 Arizona, No. 14 Memphis, No. 15 Kentucky, No. 16 Wisconsin, No. 17 Kansas, No. 18 Marquette, No. 19 Ole Miss and No. 20 Michigan.
UK spent 10 consecutive weeks in the top 10 before sliding to No. 12 two weeks ago. The Cats were ranked 14th in last week’s poll. They started the Mark Pope era at No. 23 in the preseason rankings.
At the end of the new Top 25, it was No. 21 Missouri, No. 22 Mississippi State, No. 23 Clemson, No. 24 Creighton and No. 25 Maryland.
There are now nine SEC teams in the national rankings, with some recent bracketology updates having as many as 14 teams from the conference in the 2025 NCAA Tournament field.
Kentucky basketball schedule
The KenPom projections actually have the Wildcats losing both of their games this week, albeit narrowly. Those numbers foresee a 74-72 loss to Tennessee and an 81-80 defeat in Austin.
It won’t be an easy road for Kentucky, which is projected by KenPom to go 2-6 over its final eight games. And there are some formidable opponents left on the schedule.
Next week, the Cats host Vanderbilt — projected as an 89-80 win, though the Commodores beat UK in Nashville last month — and then must play at Alabama.
The week after that, Kentucky has a road game at Oklahoma and then welcomes No. 1 Auburn to Rupp Arena, with both of those currently projected as losses.
And then the Cats will close out the regular season with the home finale against LSU (projected as a 13-point victory) and a road trip to Missouri, which begins this week a game ahead of Kentucky in the SEC standings at 6-4 in league play. KenPom projects an 84-81 victory for the Tigers over the Wildcats.
Obviously, UK has proven it can defeat anyone in the country — the Cats are now 4-1 against teams currently ranked in the AP top 10 — but the rest of the schedule is peppered with top-notch programs, and simply finishing out the regular season with a .500 record in league play will be a difficult task.
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 1:13 PM.
