Kentucky’s season starts slow, but the Cats still end opening night with a rout
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Gameday: Kentucky 77, Nicholls 51
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s Kentucky-Nicholls men’s basketball game at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
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Kentucky brought its offense to Rupp Arena on Tuesday night.
It just took the Wildcats an entire half of basketball to find it.
After an abysmal start to the regular-season opener, the ninth-ranked Cats came out of the halftime locker room with a scoring flurry, ultimately defeating Nicholls 77-51 in the first game of the 2025-26 campaign.
Mark Pope’s Wildcats scored 49 points in the second half. They scored only 28 before the break.
SEC preseason player of the year Otega Oweh kickstarted UK’s second-half scoring attack and finished with 13 points in his first game as a senior. Sophomore guard Collin Chandler was a key player in the UK blowout, going for a team-high 15 points, including a 4-for-7 showing from 3-point range, four assists and a thunderous dunk.
Jasper Johnson had 11 points and four assists in his first college game. Denzel Aberdeen added 10 points, five rebounds and six assists. Mouhamed Dioubate tallied seven points, seven rebounds and four assists, while freshman center Malachi Moreno managed five points and a team-high nine rebounds in his college debut.
The highlight of the game: Chandler driving the lane and throwing down a tomahawk dunk over a Nicholls player to give the Cats a 72-40 lead. That play summed up the second half.
The first half was a difficult watch.
The monthslong hype for what is expected to be a special Kentucky basketball season fizzled into mostly silence inside Rupp Arena for the opening 20 minutes.
UK missed its first six 3-point attempts — after going 0-for-13 from deep in the second half of an exhibition loss to Georgetown five days earlier — and went into halftime shooting 2-for-16 from long range. The Cats were 10-for-31 from the field.
Nicholls, which came into the game as 32.5-point underdogs, was much worse out of the gate.
The Colonels missed 14 of their first 15 shot attempts and ultimately went 3-for-25 from the field in the opening half. They were 1-for-14 from deep in the first 20 minutes and scored more points from the free-throw line (eight) than the field (seven) before halftime.
On UK’s offensive end, the Cats often struggled to get past the first line of Nicholls’ perimeter defense, settling for 3-pointers that they couldn’t make. Kentucky did attempt 13 free throws in the first half, but the Wildcats made just six of those.
The halftime score — 28-15 in favor of Kentucky — summed up a sorry first half of offense.
UK found its game to start the second half.
Oweh came out of the break with a strong drive to the rim, resulting in a bucket. Chandler followed that up with a corner 3-pointer a short time later. Aberdeen then attacked the basket, resulting in a 3-point play. Then Chandler drove the lane and found Dioubate for a layup.
The offensive flurry — 13 points in less than three and a half minutes — ended with a corner 3 from Oweh, who gave the Cats a 41-19 lead and forced Nicholls to call a timeout with 16:30 left.
UK had made its first five shots of the half. And, from there, the rout was on.
Denzel Aberdeen, Jaland Lowe updates
UK’s starting point guard, Jaland Lowe, remained out of the lineup for the Wildcats’ regular-season opener after missing both of the team’s exhibition games with an injured shoulder.
Denzel Aberdeen, his replacement at the starting point guard spot, made his return to the UK lineup, though he was not in the starting lineup. Collin Chandler started alongside Otega Oweh, Trent Noah, Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison against Nicholls.
Aberdeen, who checked into the game with 13:58 left in the first half, is expected to enter the starting five once he’s fully healthy. He missed the exhibition game against Georgetown last week with a leg injury. When both he and Lowe are back to full strength, Noah — a sophomore from Harlan — is likely headed back to a reserve role.
In fact, Aberdeen started the second half Tuesday night in place of Noah, who left the game late in the first half with an apparent ankle injury and did not return to action for the rest of the contest (though he was back on the UK bench after halftime).
This was Noah’s first regular-season start as a college player, though he was in the first five for both exhibitions. Chandler also made his first regular-season start for the Wildcats on Tuesday.
Freshmen Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno — both central Kentucky natives — were the first two UK players off the bench.
When is the next Kentucky basketball game?
The Wildcats will be back on the court for a game against Valparaiso at 7 p.m. EST Friday in Rupp Arena. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+.
Valparaiso tipped off its regular season against Eastern Illinois on Tuesday night. The Beacons went into their opener at No. 284 nationally in the KenPom ratings. They were 15-19 overall and 6-14 in Missouri Valley Conference play last season, finishing last in the league.
Valpo has 14 new players on its 2025-26 roster, with just three returnees.
Friday night’s game will be the Wildcats’ final test before the trip to play No. 11-ranked Louisville in the Yum Center next week.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 8:59 PM.
