5 things you need to know from Kentucky’s 77-51 season-opening win vs. Nicholls
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Gameday: Kentucky 77, Nicholls 51
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s Kentucky-Nicholls men’s basketball game at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
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Five things you need to know from No. 9 Kentucky’s 77-51 win against Nicholls in the 2025-26 season opener:
1. Not an auspicious start to Rupp Arena’s golden anniversary. The 50th season of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball at Rupp Arena might have started with the ugliest half ever played in the venerable hoops barn.
Kentucky made only 10 of its 31 first half shots, missed 14 of the 16 3-pointers it took and missed more free throws (seven) than it made (six).
Yet the Cats were scalding hot compared to the visitors from Nicholls.
The Colonels shot 3-for-25 from the floor and 1-for-14 from outside the arc in the first half.
That degree of errant shooting is how one gets a 28-15 halftime score.
2. Counting the 3-pointers. Since becoming Kentucky coach, Mark Pope has often expressed the desire to see the Wildcats take “35 good 3-point shots” a game.
On Tuesday night, the Wildcats took 27 shots from behind the arc, making seven.
Last season, in Pope’s debut as top Cat, Kentucky took an average of 25.3 treys a contest (910 attempts in 36 games).
In Pope’s final season at BYU in 2023-24, the Cougars averaged 32 3-point attempts a game (1,087 in 34 contests).
From what we’ve seen so far of the current Cats, the issue is less taking threes and more the difficulty UK has in making them.
After going 0-for-13 in the second half and 7-for-30 overall on 3-pointers in the exhibition loss to Georgetown, the Cats didn’t exactly light it up in the regular-season opener.
On this night, the most memorable Kentucky bucket of the night was not a trey but the emphatic cuff dunk UK’s Collin Chandler threw down with 5:12 left in the game.
3. How the homegrown freshmen fared. In Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno, UK debuted a pair of high-profile, in-state freshmen.
The 6-foot-5, 180-pound Johnson, a former star at Woodford County High School, officially launched his college career by scoring 11 points and doling out four assists.
In the first half, when buckets were at a premium, Johnson essentially led a 6-0 UK run by scoring on a 6-footer in the lane, assisting on an Andrija Jelavic layup and then making a nifty move to score on a layin of his own.
For the game, Johnson finished 3-for-7 on field goals, 1-for-4 on 3-pointers and 4-for-5 on foul shots.
Former Great Crossing star Moreno, a 7-foot, 250-pound center, finished with five points and nine rebounds.
Moreno, both Kentucky’s 2025 Mr. Basketball and state tournament MVP, hit 2 of 5 field goals, but struggled from the foul line, where he went 1-for-6.
In the 21st century, these are the top scoring performances by products of Kentucky high school basketball for UK in a season opener:
• CJ Fredrick (Covington Catholic High School), 20 points, 2022-23, 95-63 over Howard;
• Rajon Rondo (Eastern High School), 17 points, 2005-06, 71-54 over South Dakota State;
• Derek Willis (Bullitt East), 15 points, 2016-17, 87-64 over Stephen F. Austin;
• Derek Willis (Bullitt East), 14 points, 2015-16, 78-65 over Albany;
• Marquis Estill (Madison Central), 14 points, 2002-03, 82-65 over Arizona State;
• Antwain Barbour (Elizabethtown), 13 points, 2002-03, 82-65 over Arizona State.
• Reed Sheppard (North Laurel), 12 points, 2023-24, 86-46 over New Mexico State.
• Jasper Johnson (Woodford County) 11 points, 2025-26, 77-51 over Nicholls.
4. Cats in season openers. With its victory, UK improved its all-time mark in season openers to 102-21.
In home openers, Kentucky is now 107-16 all-time.
The Wildcats began their 50th season playing at Rupp Arena by running their record in home openers in the venue to 46-4.
5. The all-time wins race. The 2025-26 men’s college basketball season began with Kentucky holding a 2,422-2,414 advantage over Kansas in the battle to be the all-time winningest program in the history of the sport.
Kansas opened its 2025-26 campaign with a 94-51 win over Green Bay on Monday night.
So UK’s victory over Nicholls maintained the eight-win edge the Wildcats held over the Jayhawks entering the season.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 9:06 PM.
