Kentucky basketball loses an exhibition game for the first time in 11 years
If there’s such a thing as a letdown game in the preseason, Kentucky experienced it Thursday night.
Coming off an exhibition victory over the No. 1-ranked team in college basketball, the Wildcats turned in a total clunker in their final test before the 2025-26 regular season begins.
The Georgetown Hoyas defeated No. 9 Kentucky 84-70 in Rupp Arena, marking the program’s first loss in an exhibition game in 11 years and the Cats’ first defeat in a preseason game since 2002.
Last week, UK defeated No. 1 Purdue 78-65 in Rupp, a result that only lifted the sky-high expectations around Mark Pope’s second Kentucky team.
The loss to Georgetown — a squad picked to finish sixth in the Big East and not projected as an NCAA Tournament team — ended the Cats’ preseason on a sour note.
UK was playing without its top two point guard options — Jaland Lowe and Denzel Aberdeen both sat due to injuries — and the Cats looked out of sorts for most of the night.
They started the second half in a 46-39 hole and didn’t score until Chandler — the fill-in starter at point guard — threw down a dunk in transition with 15:57 left in the game. The Cats were trailing by 14 points before that play, and their deficit reached 17 points later in the half.
Kentucky was behind by double digits for the final 17:31 of the game, never threatening the Hoyas in the second half.
SEC preseason player of the year Otega Oweh led the Wildcats with 17 points. Junior forward Mouhamed Dioubate added 13 points and seven rebounds, and Collin Chandler tallied 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
Malik Mack led the Hoyas with 22 points.
The tone was set early.
Kentucky was up 19-16 nearly midway through the first half before Georgetown hit six consecutive shots from the field, ultimately missing just once in 10 attempts. By the end of that flurry, the Hoyas led the Wildcats 38-29.
That run was followed by perhaps the lowest point of the first half. Freshman center Malachi Moreno drained a 3-pointer to get the crowd going and narrow Georgetown’s lead to 38-32 with a little more than 4 minutes left in the period.
But Mack scored rather easily on the other end, then Moreno threw the inbounds pass away and fouled Hoyas center Vince Iwuchukwu, who hit two free throws to give Georgetown its first double-digit lead of the game.
A long 3-pointer by Chandler saved the Cats from being down double digits at the half, but it was a lackluster first 20 minutes for the home team. And the second 20 minutes wasn’t any better.
Kentucky shot just 20 of 60 from the field (33%) and 7 of 30 (23.3%) from 3-point range. The Cats were 0 for 13 from deep in the second half. Georgetown shot 55.4% on field goals, often finding holes in a porous UK defense that allowed 38 points in the paint and 17 more at the free throw line.
A Rupp crowd that remained hot throughout the victory over Purdue last week was relatively silent for most of this one.
UK had not lost an exhibition since Aug. 17, 2014, when the 2014-15 team dropped a summer contest to the Dominican Republic national team during a six-game stay in the Bahamas. The program’s last loss in a preseason exhibition came on Nov. 18, 2002, when Team Nike beat Kentucky in Rupp Arena.
Both of those UK teams ended up going into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed in the bracket. The 2014-15 squad was 38-0 until a Final Four loss to Wisconsin, and the 2002-03 Cats were 32-3 on the season before an Elite Eight loss to Marquette.
Denzel Aberdeen injury shakes up starting lineup
Jaland Lowe remained out of Kentucky’s lineup with a shoulder injury Thursday night, and the player Mark Pope picked as his replacement as the starting point guard last week, Denzel Aberdeen, was sidelined, too.
Aberdeen missed the game against Georgetown with a leg injury, though he was on the Rupp Arena court going through warmups beforehand, and Pope said he did not expect Aberdeen to be sidelined long.
With Lowe and Aberdeen out, the UK starters against the Hoyas were Collin Chandler, Otega Oweh, Trent Noah, Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison, with Chandler sliding into the starting point guard spot. The other four all started in last week’s victory over Purdue.
It’s possible that both Aberdeen and Lowe will be back for the regular-season opener.
When is the next UK basketball game?
The exhibition season is finished, and the games will count the next time Kentucky takes the court.
That will come at 7 p.m. Tuesday, with Nicholls coming to Rupp Arena for the regular-season opener. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+.
Nicholls had a 20-13 overall record last season and finished third in the Southland Conference with a 13-7 league mark. The Colonels will start the 2025-26 season at No. 225 nationally in the KenPom ratings.
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 9:09 PM.
