Why have UK and Murray State never played in men’s hoops? MSU gives its side
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky and Murray State have never met in men’s basketball competition.
- MSU prefers a first-time UK matchup on a neutral court or in NCAA tournament play.
- For Kentucky, a regular-season game with Murray State remains unlikely.
After Kentucky defeated Western Kentucky 87-68 last Nov. 26 at Rupp Arena, Mark Pope expressed a fondness for playing in-state foes.
“I think in-state games are great, because they’re always tough,” the UK men’s basketball coach said. “There’s just added emotion, right? There’s just a pride to it. … And so when we get (such games on the schedule), they’ll be super useful.”
There are mutual benefits when Kentucky faces its in-state hoops brethren.
For the in-state, NCAA Division I universities other than UK, the optimal way to attract statewide attention to one’s men’s basketball program is to schedule a game against the tradition-rich team that represents Kentucky’s flagship state university.
From the UK perspective, playing any in-state foe is more interesting than contests vs. the likes of Bucknell and Colgate (to name two teams on last season’s Kentucky non-league slate).
Even with those realities, one of the commonwealth’s other D-I schools — one that boasts ample hoops tradition of its own — has never played UK in men’s hoops.
Will the Murray State Racers and Kentucky Wildcats ever meet in men’s basketball?
For reasons that will be explained below by MSU athletics director Nico Yantko, it seems unlikely we will see a UK-MSU regular season game anytime soon.
In the Missouri Valley Conference since 2022-23, Murray State does not play an abundance of non-league games against power conference foes.
So far in the current decade (since 2019-20), MSU has only played six times against a power conference team. Four of those six contests have come against Southeastern Conference opponents.
Murray State is 1-5 in those six games, with the win coming against Texas A&M, 88-79, in the Myrtle Beach Invitational in 2022-23.
Otherwise, Murray has lost at Tennessee (82-63 in 2019-20), at Auburn (71-58 in 2021-22), at Mississippi State (85-81 in 2023-24) and fell last year at Pittsburgh of the ACC (83-68) and to Nebraska of the Big Ten (66-49 in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu).
Kentucky and Murray State do play in other sports.
Just this past school year, MSU beat UK 5-4 in baseball in Lexington on March 18 (an outcome that, from the Wildcats’ perspective, looked a lot better after coach Dan Skirka’s Racers subsequently made an epic Cinderella run through the NCAA Tournament that ended with Murray State reaching the College World Series).
Last Nov. 16, the Kentucky football team defeated Murray State 48-6 at Kroger Field in a contest in which UK paid MSU a $600,000 guarantee to participate.
During the 2022-23 school year, Murray State women’s basketball came to Lexington and beat Kentucky, then under head coach Kyra Elzy, 51-44.
In men’s basketball, Kentucky is the winningest NCAA Division I program of all time. Murray State has an estimable hoops legacy as one of the better mid-major programs in the country. Just in the 21st century, UK has played in 22 NCAA Tournaments, while Murray State has played in eight.
Of all the sports, it seems like men’s hoops would be the most natural in which Murray State and Kentucky would play.
So why not try to make it happen?
“A part of me is going, ‘Hey, look, I want the first time (Murray State plays Kentucky) to be on a neutral floor,” Yantko says. “... If we see (UK) in the (NCAA) tournament, if I were to have my wishes, that would be the first time that I would want to see that game.”
For the 2022 NCAA Tournament, it seemed the selection committee had done its part to make a Kentucky-Murray State men’s hoops contest happen. All that it would have taken for UK-MSU to finally play would have been for both to win their first-round games as the higher-seeded teams.
Alas, you know how that story played out. No. 7 seed Murray State outlasted No. 10 seed San Francisco 92-87 in overtime, but No. 2 seed Kentucky was shocked by No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s, John Calipari’s Wildcats falling 85-79 in OT.
Those pesky Peacocks went on to upset Murray State and Purdue en route to the Elite Eight. That Saint Peter’s magic canceled what would have been, at long last, a UK-Murray State men’s hoops meeting.
Both Kentucky and Murray State are presently in the midst of men’s basketball “resets.” Pope will begin his second season as UK coach in 2025-26, while former Creighton assistant Ryan Miller will debut as Murray’s head man this winter.
However great Pope’s enthusiasm for playing in-state teams, it sounds like the NCAA tourney is the only place we are going to see a Kentucky-Murray State matchup anytime soon.
“Murray State has a tremendous (basketball) history, and we’re really proud about that, and we’re going to continue to lean into that,” Yantko said. “You know, maybe if (UK-MSU) happens, it’s on a neutral court, and we’ll see how it lies.”
Kentucky’s record vs. in-state foes
How UK men’s basketball has fared against the other seven NCAA Division I teams from the commonwealth of Kentucky:
▪ Bellarmine 1-0
▪ Eastern Kentucky 12-0
▪ Louisville 40-17
▪ Morehead State 12-0
▪ Murray State 0-0
▪ Northern Kentucky 2-0
▪ Western Kentucky 6-2
