The Louisville loss was a downer. Here’s why Kentucky better get over it quickly
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky lost early to Louisville in Game 3 but season retains major upside.
- Five high-profile nonconference games arrive fast to rebuild resume.
- UK faces Michigan State, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Indiana and St. John's next.
Kentucky failed its first big test, but that hardly makes this 2025-26 season a failure.
As much as the rivalry loss to Louisville will sting — and as bad as the Wildcats looked for long stretches in the KFC Yum Center on Tuesday night — this defeat took place on Nov. 11.
In game three.
There’s a lot of season left.
And, in Kentucky’s case, a lot more opportunities to rack up quality wins before the conference schedule even begins.
Mark Pope’s first UK team made a statement to the college basketball world with an upset of Duke in the Champions Classic last year. That game happened on Nov. 12.
That was the first of five marquee matchups on the Wildcats’ nonconference schedule. They lost the second (at Clemson), won the third (an improbable comeback over Gonzaga in Seattle) and the fourth (the rivalry game against Louisville in Rupp Arena) before a miserable day in Madison Square Garden culminated in an 85-65 loss to Ohio State.
The showing at Louisville on Tuesday night — other than coming in the regular-season game many UK fans want their team to win the most — wasn’t nearly as bad as that performance against the Buckeyes. And the Cats bounced back from that one just fine.
This UK team will have plenty of chances to right the ship against quality foes, too. And these Wildcats won’t have to wait much longer before they get their next shot.
The timing of the Louisville game — the second week of the season, instead of its usual spot in late December — has given many who follow the Cats a disoriented sense of the schedule. Count the Kentucky coaches and players among that group.
“I mean, everything comes so fast,” Pope said after the win over Valparaiso this past Friday. “We’re going to be in New York the week after next. Someone told me that yesterday, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ It seemed like it was months away. So it’s just great game after great game after great game.”
That’s right. On Tuesday night, it’ll be Michigan State in Madison Square Garden. Two weeks after that, it’s North Carolina in Rupp Arena. Three days later, Gonzaga in Nashville. Eight days after that, Indiana in Rupp. The following weekend, St. John’s in Atlanta.
All five of those teams could be ranked when they face Kentucky.
“Obviously, I know we’re playing those teams,” Oweh acknowledged the day before the Louisville game. “I didn’t even realize it was coming up that quick.”
It is. Five more nonconference opportunities to build up their NCAA Tournament résumé. And not much time — before or in between — to right the things that went so wrong in the Yum Center.
This formidable slate is coming fast, and it’s looking more daunting by the day.
As tough as Kentucky’s schedule was last season — it was ultimately ranked as the third most difficult in college basketball — many of those major nonconference foes fizzled a bit down the stretch.
Clemson ended up as a 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga was an 8 seed. So was Louisville. None from that group made it past the first week of March Madness, and Ohio State didn’t make the field at all.
It’s early, but UK’s opponents over these next several weeks look even tougher.
Not only are the Wildcats about to play against some name-brand schools. Those name-brand schools are playing some really good basketball.
Upcoming Kentucky basketball schedule
First up, Michigan State in the Champions Classic on Tuesday night.
The Spartans are enjoying something of a renaissance. After four consecutive years with 13 or more losses — way outside the norm for Tom Izzo’s program — Michigan State went 30-7 last season and advanced to the Elite Eight. That success has carried over to this campaign.
Izzo’s team likely isn’t going to bombard UK’s work-in-progress defense with scoring flurries, but the Spartans will surely try to extend possessions, wear down the Wildcats and force them out of position — something Louisville excelled at — to give themselves good looks.
And Michigan State boasts a top-10 defense nationally that held John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks — expected to be much improved this season — in check for a 69-66 victory last weekend. Sparty jumped five spots to No. 17 in the Top 25 rankings with that win, and Izzo’s bunch should give Kentucky another difficult test.
After that, the Cats will have two weeks to regroup — and two games against mid-majors in Rupp to work out any troubles that arise — before North Carolina comes to town. And the Tar Heels are also riding an early wave of momentum.
UNC knocked off Kansas last week, a victory that led the Heels to jump seven spots in the AP poll to No. 18. Its scoring attack in that 87-74 win over the Jayhawks — a team that won at Louisville in its exhibition opener — earned an adjusted offensive efficiency rating not far off the number U of L got for its win over Kentucky.
Long story short, this UNC offense could be dangerous, and UK’s D still needs work.
Later that same week, Kentucky will travel to Nashville for a game against Gonzaga, which jumped a couple of spots to No. 19 in the AP poll following an 83-68 win over an Oklahoma team that is expected to compete for an NCAA Tournament spot.
On Tuesday night, the Zags blasted No. 23-ranked Creighton 90-63. Coach Mark Few’s offense has been consistently great, his defense has been excellent and both of those units look like they’ll battle for top-10 national status this season. The human rankings might not have caught up to how good this Gonzaga team really is. The Zags are due for another Top 25 bump Monday.
The UK-Indiana rivalry renews Dec. 13 in Rupp Arena. The structure of this series — four games over the next four years — was drawn up when Calipari was coaching the Cats and Mike Woodson was in charge at Indiana, but neither stuck around long enough to see it come to fruition.
After Woodson’s disappointing tenure, the Hoosiers turned to Darian DeVries, and he’s off to an exciting start.
Indiana beat Marquette — another NCAA Tournament-caliber team — 100-77 last week. The Hoosiers’ adjusted offensive efficiency rating for that one was just slightly below the number Louisville received for its win over the Wildcats. Another potential scoring juggernaut.
Indiana went from receiving one 25th-place vote in the preseason AP poll to finishing 28th in the voting in the first rankings of the regular season. Eleven voters had the Hoosiers on their ballots, and this could be yet another Top 25 matchup for the Cats by the time Dec. 13 rolls around. (IU will play Louisville in Indianapolis on Dec. 6.)
A week after UK faces the Hoosiers, it’s Rick Pitino and St. John’s in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta.
The Red Storm are the only marquee opponent on UK’s nonconference schedule that hasn’t started this season on a hot streak. They blasted Quinnipiac in the opener before falling 103-96 to Alabama last weekend in Madison Square Garden.
There’s no shame in that, though. Bama jumped seven spots in the AP rankings — to No. 8 overall — and St. John’s is still the No. 13 team in the country. Pitino’s roster is new and getting to know each other — he pulled in the nation’s No. 1 transfer class — and the offense has still been impressive.
And Pitino has more than a month to get them on the same page before they face Kentucky, with high-profile games against Iowa State, Baylor and Ole Miss between now and then.
That Dec. 20 date in Atlanta might seem far away, but it’s coming fast.
“I’m just looking at it one game at a time,” said Oweh, a senior this season. “Especially for me, this is my last year. So I’m just trying to be as locked in for every single game as possible. But, nah, you don’t want to look down the road. I feel like that’s when you can slip up, you know, with the game in front of you. So we’re just looking at every game as the most important game.”
There are a lot of important games left on the Wildcats’ schedule.
This story was originally published November 13, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
