Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 72-60 comeback win vs. Indiana
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 72-60 comeback win over Indiana:
1. The candy-striped pants return to Rupp Arena: Indiana played Kentucky in Lexington for the first time since Dec. 11, 2010, an 81-62 UK win.
The Hoosiers and Wildcats played in the regular season for the first time since December 10, 2011, a game IU famously won at the buzzer on Christian Watford’s 3-pointer.
Saturday night’s meeting between Kentucky and Indiana in men’s basketball was the first anywhere since Tom Crean and the Hoosiers beat John Calipari and the Wildcats 73-67 in the 2016 NCAA Tournament round of 32 in Des Moines, Iowa.
In the 1970s and 1980s, in the heyday of Joe B. Hall vs. Bobby Knight, UK vs. IU was, arguably, the most-intense non-conference rivalry in men’s college basketball.
On Saturday night, there were some signs of the old heat. There was a surprising amount of “Indiana red” in the Rupp Arena stands. Kentucky backers greeted the IU team with hearty boos each time the Hoosiers took the court.
The game itself was not artistic, but it was intense like in the old days of UK-IU.
For those of us old enough to remember when Kentucky vs. Indiana was the most-anticipated game of the UK regular season, it was nice to have the border rivalry back.
2. Mouhamed Dioubate makes an emphatic return. With an 0-4 record in marquee games this season and down 39-32 to Indiana at halftime, it felt like Kentucky was in a desperate spot.
Needing to find some grit, UK found it in the No. 23 jersey.
Back from an ankle injury that had sidelined him since Nov. 18, Alabama transfer Mouhamed Dioubate refused to let Kentucky take another dispiriting “L.”
The 6-foot-7, 220-pound junior led UK in scoring (14) and rebounding (12) and, seemingly, gut-check hustle plays.
When Indiana had cut a 65-54 Kentucky lead to 65-58 and had the ball under its own basket, Dioubate stole an inbounds pass.
On the ensuing UK offensive possession, the Queens, New York, product extended a Kentucky possession by fighting so relentlessly for an offensive rebound, that the ball went out of bounds off the leg of IU’s Tucker DeVries.
That set up Jaland Lowe — who had his best game in a UK uniform (13 points, five rebounds, two assists) in a season in which he has battled shoulder injuries — to score the game-clinching bucket at 2:18 on a driving layup.
Kentucky does not appear to have the offensive skill on its roster to play “pretty basketball” this year. Dioubate’s grind vs. Indiana showed the Cats the way to prosper anyway.
3. Mark Pope gets his rivalry mojo back. In his first season as UK head man, Pope fared well in contests vs. Kentucky’s primary men’s hoops rivals. In seven such games, Pope went 5-2 in 2024-25.
While a team’s rivals list is a living, fluid thing, currently there are eight teams I would consider to be UK’s main men’s hoops rivals.
Duke, Kansas and North Carolina rank as UK rivals via their status as the Wildcats’ peers as men’s college basketball blue bloods.
Indiana, Louisville and Tennessee are Kentucky rivals due to geography and shared history.
Florida is a UK rival because the Gators, with three NCAA titles since 2006, are bidding to supplant Kentucky as the Southeastern Conference’s signature men’s basketball program.
Arkansas ranks as a Wildcats rival due to the presence of ex-top-Cat John Calipari as boss Hog.
Last season, Pope went 1-0 each vs. Duke, Louisville and Florida; 2-1 vs. Tennessee; and 0-1 against Arkansas.
This year had gotten off to a rockier start in rivalry games, as Pope took a road defeat, 96-88, at Louisville and a 67-64 home loss to North Carolina.
The win over Indiana makes the UK coach 6-4 in his Wildcats career in rivalry games.
Still ahead are rivalry games at Tennessee (Jan. 17); vs. Tennessee (Feb. 7); at Florida (Feb. 14); and vs. Florida (March 7).
4. Lamar Wilkerson’s encore. The Indiana wing, who spurned the efforts of Kentucky recruiters last spring to woo him from the transfer portal, was coming off an historic performance:
In the Hoosiers’ 113-72 drubbing of Big Ten foe Penn State on Tuesday night, the 6-6, 205-pound senior, a transfer from Sam Houston State, hit 16 of 22 shots, 10 of 15 3-pointers and both of his foul shots to finish with 44 points.
The 10 made treys was a new IU single-game record. The 44 points were a new Assembly Hall scoring mark.
Against Kentucky, Wilkerson was the only player in the game who could make a shot in the first half.
He finished half one 4 of 7 on field goals, 2 of 4 on 3-point attempts, and he had 12 points. Every other player in the game from both teams combined to shoot 14-43, 2-19 in the first half.
The one thing that slowed Wilkerson down was fouls. He committed his third with 4:09 left in the first half and sat out the remainder of the half. He then picked up his fourth defending against a Collin Chandler drive with only 2:02 into the second half.
The IU wing did not get back into the game until there was only 9:30 left.
He finished with 15 points on 5 of 11 shooting, 2 of 5 treys.
5. UK’s 3-point shooting is ugly again. Kentucky entered Saturday night’s game 27 of 111, a horrid 24.3%, on 3-point attempts in its four previous games against power-conference foes and/or Gonzaga.
Versus Indiana, it was more of the same. The Cats went 1 of 9 on 3-pointers in half one and finished 3 of 15 for the game.
On the season, UK is making 23.8% on 3-point shots.
To Kentucky’s credit, this time, the Cats found a way to win in spite of their errant outside shooting.
This story was originally published December 13, 2025 at 10:17 PM.
