Kentucky, Gonzaga cancel basketball series, creating hole on future UK schedules
The men’s college basketball series between Kentucky and Gonzaga is finished.
UK announced Wednesday afternoon that the two programs “mutually agreed” to discontinue the series with two years remaining on an agreement that was originally signed in 2022.
The Cats were scheduled to host Gonzaga in Rupp Arena this season, with the Zags scheduled to host Kentucky at the McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington during the 2027-28 season, which was supposed to be the final matchup in what was originally planned as a six-game series.
Instead, the series will end after four games. Gonzaga defeated Kentucky three times over the past four years, with UK’s lone victory coming during the 2023-24 season, which was Mark Pope’s first in charge of the program.
In that game, Kentucky rallied from a double-digit deficit to defeat Gonzaga 90-89 in overtime in Seattle. It was technically a neutral-site contest, though Gonzaga controlled the ticket allotment, and the crowd at the Climate Pledge Arena was heavily tilted in the Zags’ favor.
Gonzaga defeated UK in the series opener in the off-campus Spokane Arena, then beat Kentucky in Rupp Arena during John Calipari’s final season as the Cats’ head coach. Last season, the Zags routed Pope’s UK team 94-59 in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, where a heavily partisan Kentucky crowd booed the Cats off the court following the 35-point loss.
The UK-Gonzaga series was a late addition to the 2022-23 schedule, with Calipari and Mark Few — a close friend of the former Kentucky coach — coming to the agreement in the final stages of the scheduling cycle that year.
The final game of that agreement was set to be the first played on Gonzaga’s home court — aka The Kennel, one of the most raucous atmospheres in college basketball — and was a highly anticipated event.
Ending the series now also eliminates a marquee home game from UK’s home schedule for the 2026-27 season, but it will give Pope more flexibility in scheduling moving forward.
Kentucky will host Louisville in Rupp during the upcoming season, and the team also has neutral-site games scheduled against Kansas (Champions Classic in Chicago) and North Carolina (CBS Sports Classic in New York), with another game against Indiana in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, as well as the fourth installment of the ACC/SEC Challenge.
UK’s ACC opponent has not yet been announced, though it’s expected to be a road game for the Cats.
The Gonzaga and Indiana series were agreed to under Calipari’s watch, but the former UK coach faced the Zags only twice (both losses) and didn’t stick around in Lexington long enough to be part of the renewal of the UK-IU series, which restarted last year with a victory for the Cats in Rupp Arena.
Kentucky is scheduled to play the Hoosiers in each of the next three seasons.
Gonzaga is ranked No. 10 in the latest preseason Top 25 from CBS Sports. The Zags are leaving the West Coast Conference this offseason and joining a new version of the Pac 12 that will include former members Oregon State and Washington State, as well as San Diego State, Utah State and four other programs.
