Kentucky adds another familiar face to the 2026-27 men’s basketball schedule
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky will play Little Rock in an exhibition at Rupp Arena on Oct. 16.
- Kentucky announced a Dec. 5, 2026 regular-season game at Rupp against Appalachian State.
- Kentucky currently has 31 scheduled regular-season matchups with one spot open.
A couple of holes have been filled on the Kentucky men’s basketball schedule for the 2026-27 season, including an exhibition game featuring a former Wildcat.
UK announced the latest additions to the schedule Friday morning, along with ticket information heading into Mark Pope’s third season in charge of the program.
The Cats will play Little Rock in an exhibition game in Rupp Arena on Oct. 16. That is expected to be the first of three preseason home games for the Cats, who were already slated to tip off the regular season against Manhattan in Rupp on Nov. 3.
New NCAA rules that take effect this season will allow college teams to play three exhibition games, and all of Kentucky’s preseason matchups are expected to be in Lexington. The other two exhibition games have not been announced.
Little Rock is entering its first season under new head coach Travis Ford, who was a standout point guard for the Cats in the early 1990s before becoming a college head coach at age 27.
Ford, 56, has coached at Campbellsville, Eastern Kentucky, UMass, Oklahoma State and, most recently, Saint Louis, which he led from 2016 to 2024. Little Rock plays in the new United Athletic Conference, which will also be Eastern Kentucky’s league moving forward.
The 2026-27 schedule already included a home game against James Madison, which is entering its third season under head coach Preston Spradlin, a former UK staff member during the John Calipari era.
In addition to UK’s exhibition game with Little Rock, the school announced a regular season matchup against Appalachian State that will take place Dec. 5 in Rupp Arena. The Mountaineers finished in a six-way tie for second place in the Sun Belt Conference last season.
With Appalachian State joining the 2026-27 schedule, the Cats now have just one opening left for the regular season. The NCAA also upped the number of regular season games that college basketball teams will be able to play starting this season — increasing that total by one, to 32 — and UK now has 31 matchups on its slate.
The nonconference schedule will feature games against Kansas (Nov. 10 in Chicago), Indiana (Nov. 20 in Indianapolis), Virginia (Dec. 2 in Charlottesville), Louisville (Dec. 12 in Rupp) and North Carolina (Dec. 19 in New York).
With the remaining hole on UK’s regular season schedule expected to be filled with a neutral site game, that leaves Louisville as the only marquee nonconference opponent on the home slate for next season, though the Cats will have plenty of high-profile games in conference play.
Kentucky’s nine SEC home games will come against Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt. Of those opponents, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Vanderbilt are expected to be preseason Top 25 teams.
The Cats will also play SEC road games at Florida (the consensus No. 1 team in the preseason rankings) and Texas (a projected top-10 team nationally), along with the annual trips to Tennessee and Vanderbilt.
UK is No. 16 in the CBS Sports preseason rankings and No. 17 in ESPN’s early Top 25, with a roster that will be headlined by top 3-point shooter Milan Momcilovic, returning center Malachi Moreno and the transfer backcourt duo of Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins.
Kentucky basketball season tickets
UK also announced Friday that renewal packages are now available to all season ticket holders from last season.
Fans interested in purchasing new season tickets can sign up for a lottery at UKAthletics.com/MBBTix. A limited number of upper-level tickets will be made available through the lottery.
Existing season ticket holders will receive an email with instructions on how to renew their tickets for the 2026-27 schedule. The early renewal deadline for season ticket holders is July 31, with a final deadline of Aug. 21.
Single-game tickets for the 2026-27 season will go on sale in the fall.
