Finally, Kentucky basketball wins a big one. Cats rally past Indiana in Rupp
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- Kentucky rallied from a late deficit to beat Indiana 72-60, first high-major win.
- Wildcats used a 17-2 second-half run, forcing turnovers and winning rebounds.
- Dioubate returned with 14 points, 12 rebounds; UK 7-4, faces No.22 St. John's.
Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats needed a win Saturday night.
It wasn’t pretty — and, for a long while, it looked like it wasn’t coming at all — but the Cats earned that victory in the end.
Kentucky beat Indiana 72-60 in a renewal of the border-state rivalry, the Wildcats’ first win over a high-major opponent in their fifth try of a season that hasn’t gone according to plan.
Rupp Arena was rocking for this one, and — after falling behind by as many as nine points late in the first half — Kentucky gave the home fans plenty to get loud about down the stretch.
The Wildcats unleashed a 17-2 run midway through the second half. During that stretch, they battled for loose balls, outfought the Hoosiers for offensive rebounds and ratcheted up the defense to force several Indiana turnovers.
By the end of that run, the Cats had turned a 49-42 deficit into a 59-51 lead, and they never trailed again.
Mouhamed Dioubate made his return to the court after missing Kentucky’s past five games with an ankle injury. The junior forward tallied 14 points, 12 rebounds and five steals for the Wildcats, coming up with a number of big plays during their game-turning run.
Otega Oweh (10 points) scored in double figures yet again, and Jaland Lowe joined him with 13 points. Brandon Garrison was also instrumental in Kentucky’s 17-2 run. He finished with six points and five rebounds.
Fouls were a major factor in the game. A total of 24 were called in the first half alone, and eight players — five for Indiana, three for Kentucky — had at least two fouls at halftime.
Lamar Wilkerson — the Hoosiers’ top player — picked up three fouls in the first half and was called for his fourth with 17:58 left in the game. Wilkerson didn’t return to the game until the 9:30 mark — UK outscored IU 17-9 while he was out for that stretch — and finished the night with 15 points. Wilkerson scored 44 points and made 10 3-pointers in a win over Penn State earlier in the week.
Kentucky’s 3-point woes against quality teams — the Cats were 24.3% from deep in losses to Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina and Gonzaga — continued in the first half Saturday night. UK missed its first seven 3-point attempts and went 1 for 9 in the first half.
The Wildcats shot 3 for 15 from the perimeter for the game.
UK improved to 7-4 on the season. IU dropped to 8-3.
This was the first regular-season meeting between Kentucky and Indiana since Christian Watford’s buzzer-beater in Bloomington lifted the Hoosiers to a victory over the No. 1-ranked Wildcats on Dec. 10, 2011. UK beat IU during the NCAA Tournament that season on its way to the 2012 national title, the only NCAA championship during John Calipari’s tenure.
The two sides also met in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, with Indiana winning that one.
Kentucky will have a week off before its next game, and it’s a big one. The Wildcats will play No. 22 St. John’s — coached by Rick Pitino — at 12:30 p.m. ET on Saturday in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta.
That matchup will pit Pope vs. Pitino — the co-captain and head coach, respectively, of UK’s 1996 national title team — and it will be the Wildcats’ fifth and final shot at a ranked opponent during the nonconference portion of the schedule.
See stats from Saturday’s game.
This story was originally published December 13, 2025 at 10:07 PM.
