Kentucky isn’t expected to beat Illinois. The Wildcats tell us how they feel about it
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Preview: Kentucky vs. Illinois in NCAA Tournament
Click below to read more coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com ahead of Kentucky’s men’s NCAA Tournament game against Illinois in Milwaukee on Sunday.
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A couple of minutes after Kentucky’s place in the NCAA Tournament bracket had been revealed, the buzz of anticipation at the team’s Selection Sunday watch party had quieted down.
A few of the UK basketball players were talking among themselves. Some had pulled out their phones, taking video of the scene and texting friends and family about the draw. Others stayed glued to the massive TV monitor set up for the occasion in Rupp Arena.
Lamont Butler was one of those still paying attention to the selection show as the CBS talking heads started discussing the Midwest Regional.
When Seth Davis predicted that Tennessee — a team the Cats have already defeated twice this season — would beat Kentucky in the Sweet 16 in Indianapolis, Butler didn’t try to hide his expression. “Whatever,” his face said at that moment.
He confirmed as much a few minutes later.
“Just us being doubted again,” Butler said of the prediction that night. “I mean, I feel like we’ve been doubted a lot this season, with everything we had going on this year. We’ve continued to prove people wrong. So I’m ready to prove people wrong again.”
Well, Butler and his teammates won’t have to wait until next week to silence the doubters.
The Wildcats will be underdogs for their matchup with Illinois in the round of 32 on Sunday.
Kentucky defeated Troy 76-57 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee on Friday night, delivering the first March Madness win of Mark Pope’s head coaching career and putting the Cats on a collision course with the Illini, who beat Xavier 86-73 later that night.
The Sunday matchup is set for 5:15 p.m. EDT on CBS. Illinois is expected to win it.
When the first of this weekend’s 16 NCAA Tournament games tipped off Saturday afternoon, the Wildcats were an outlier.
In 15 of those matchups, the teams with the lower — i.e. better — seed next to their names were considered to be the betting favorites. The only exception was 3-seeded Kentucky, which was listed as a 1.5-point underdog to 6-seeded Illinois for Sunday’s game.
Fresh off their practice at Fiserv Forum on Saturday afternoon, Butler was hit with that info.
He didn’t seem surprised. And he said almost the exact same thing he had six days earlier.
“I didn’t see that,” he said. “But, like I said, we’ve been doubted all year. With everything we’ve had — all the adversity — even going into the year, you know, I think we were doubted.
“So we were able to prove a lot of people wrong, and we’re gonna continue to try to prove people wrong.”
That betting line surely has something to do with all of the injuries Kentucky has sustained, a major part of the adversity that Butler spoke of Saturday. He’s still wearing that bulky, restricting brace on his left shoulder.
On the other side of the locker room sat Jaxson Robinson, the Cats’ spark-plug scorer who has been ruled out for the season with a wrist injury but was crucial to some of the team’s biggest wins, thus enabling them to earn that 3 seed on Selection Sunday. Not far from him was Kerr Kriisa, another key player lost for the season due to injury.
It was clear that news of UK’s underdog status for Sunday had not been disseminated among the Cats.
“Yeah, I hadn’t seen that yet,” starting forward Andrew Carr said. “And I think that’s great for us. We’ve been underdogs all season. You know, I think we’ve been counted out from the start. And so it’s kind of different for Kentucky to be that way. But we’re excited to embrace that role.”
The Cats were No. 23 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll but pulled off their first major upset — a win against Duke — in the second week of the season and had rocketed to No. 4 in the national rankings before the campaign was a month old.
Their first game after achieving that ranking was their first loss — at Clemson — and that also happened to be the setting for Butler’s ankle injury, which cost him two games. Kentucky never played at full strength again, but that didn’t keep them from pulling upsets.
“I’m not surprised,” starting guard Koby Brea said of their underdog status Sunday. “I feel like we’ve been the underdog this whole year, and we’ve carried that mentality throughout every game. So I’m not surprised, honestly. I kind of like it. I’d rather be the underdog. I’ve been the underdog my whole life, and I feel like this team has, too.
“So, you know, it’s just another thing for us to overcome.”
This season, Kentucky has been the underdog in 11 of its 34 games. The Wildcats have won six of those, pulling off upsets against Duke, Gonzaga, Mississippi State, Missouri and beating Tennessee twice.
And Illinois is also probably better than its 6 seed. Or, at least, the Illini have proven they can be. They’ve battled injuries and illnesses, too, this season, but the key pieces are all in place for a March run, and — when coach Brad Underwood’s team is on — Illinois has looked like a legitimate Final Four contender.
The Illini roster is packed with size, length and athleticism. Kentucky has size, too, but even the Cats themselves will acknowledge their locker room this season doesn’t resemble the ones of the John Calipari era.
“I feel like we’ve been doubted more than any team in this country, just because of the types of teams that Kentucky has had in the past,” Brea said. “And, you know, this team doesn’t look like one of those. So just people seeing us and who we are — I feel like we haven’t been believed in. The only people that’s really believed in us is us. And, you know, BBN. The people that support us. So it’s just another battle for us, another test. And I think I think we’re ready for it.”
Those UK fans will be in the building again Sunday night. But — judging by the way things looked at Friday’s night session in Milwaukee — BBN might very well be outnumbered. Illinois has a rabid fan base, too. And the university, which is just a little more than a three-hour drive from Fiserv Forum, has a major alumni base in even-closer Chicago.
Players on both sides of this game said Saturday they expected more orange than UK’s shade of blue in the stands. To that, the Cats say bring it on.
“You go back to Seattle — you have a neutral game that’s basically an away game,” Carr said of UK’s win over Gonzaga. “We’ve definitely had some experience with that this season, and so we’re excited to be able to do that. There’s nothing better in basketball. Obviously, you love playing at home. But silencing a crowd and being able to see another team’s fans leaving before the game is over? That’s really one of the best feelings in college basketball.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
