Kentucky basketball’s next opponent is a new-look, in-state foe
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- Kentucky basketball will host Bellarmine at Rupp Arena on Tuesday afternoon.
- Bellarmine and UK previously played each other during the 2022-23 season.
- This will be Kentucky’s second and final in-state opponent of the regular season.
For just the second time, Bellarmine and Kentucky are set to match up against one another on the basketball court.
The Knights and Wildcats faced off for the first time in November 2022 — John Calipari’s penultimate season in charge of the Cats — which resulted in a 60-41 slog of a win for Kentucky inside Rupp Arena.
This week, the in-state matchup is back on the schedule. Mark Pope’s Kentucky, 8-4 overall and fresh off a comeback win over Rick Pitino’s St. John’s team, will take on a new-look Bellarmine program, which is 5-6 this season.
It’s already been a season of change for Bellarmine, which is a private Catholic university located in Louisville.
Doug Davenport — a former assistant under and a son of legendary former Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport — is in his first season at the helm following his father’s retirement.
Already, there’s been a marked improvement from the past two seasons, when the Knights went a combined 13-49. With five wins this season (including Division I victories over The Citadel, Houston Christian and Chattanooga) Bellarmine already has matched last season’s win total.
As usual, Bellarmine’s roster for the 2025-26 campaign features a healthy amount of local talent. Six of the team’s 16 listed players are from Kentucky, including redshirt sophomore guard Kenyon Goodin. The former prep basketball star at Collins High School is averaging 11 points per contest.
But transfers are the players with the most scoring punch for the Knights this season. Bellarmine’s top three scorers all began their college careers at other schools.
Senior forward Jack Karasinski (20.8 points per game) is in his second season with Bellarmine after playing two years at William & Mary. Karasinski also led the Knights in scoring last season at 15.4 points per game.
Redshirt senior forward Brian Waddell (15.3 ppg) arrived this offseason after three years as a bench player at Purdue. He’s started every game so far for the Knights. Sophomore forward Michael Wilson Jr. (11 ppg) has also fared well after levelling up with an offseason transfer from NCAA Division II program North Greenville.
Doug Davenport — who was a guard at Bellarmine and had been the “coach in waiting” at the school for the past three seasons — has a ways to go to catch his father in terms of coaching accomplishments. Scott went 426-197 as Bellarmine’s coach from 2005 through 2025, and guided the Knights to four Final Fours at the NCAA Division II level, including the 2011 national championship.
Famously, the elder Davenport also led Bellarmine to the 2022 Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament championship, although the Knights were ineligible to play in that season’s NCAA Tournament.
As of the 2024-25 season, the Knights are free and clear to play in March Madness, so long as they qualify. Should the Knights make it to the Big Dance, their head coach has prior experience he can lean on.
Prior to his time as a coach at Bellarmine, Doug Davenport was on coaching staffs at Eastern Kentucky, Louisville and Xavier. He was part of Rick Pitino’s U of L staff when the Cardinals won the 2013 NCAA title.
Tuesday afternoon’s meeting at Rupp between Bellarmine and UK will be the final game of 2025 for both schools. Following the contest, both schools will switch exclusively to conference play for the rest of the season.
Kentucky has 18 games of SEC play to look forward to, starting with a Jan. 3 trip to Alabama. Bellarmine begins its 18-game ASUN Conference season on New Year’s Day at West Georgia.
The only way the Knights would find themselves in the Division I NCAA Tournament for the first time would be to win the end-of-season ASUN Conference Tournament, which runs from March 4-8 in Jacksonville.
