For the first time in the history of the “Battle of the Bluegrass” rivalry, Kentucky and Louisville will clash in November to kick off the 2025-26 season (Nov. 11 at Louisville). This will likely be one of the most anticipated games in the recent history of the rivalry, as the ‘Cats and ‘Cards are both expected to land in the top-10 of the first AP Poll Rankings of the season.
The meeting on Nov. 11 will mark the earliest that the two programs have ever clashed in the regular season. The game usually takes place in mid-to-late December, but college basketball fans won’t have to wait quite that long this year.
Kentucky head coach Mark Pope joined the “Eye on College Basketball Podcast” on Thursday, where he discussed moving the game to earlier in the season. Basically, he shot down the idea of moving the game to February (mid-conference play) and revealed that he doesn’t really have an opinion on the game taking place earlier in the season.
“I don’t have a huge opinion on when, I just love playing the games,” Pope said. “I do like first week/second week great games so I love that with whoever it is. The one complication in playing in the regular season is one, there were seven, eight, nine or 10 teams in the SEC ranked inside the top-25 last year. The league is so brutal that when you get that one bye-week, just helping you survive through the NCAA Tournament. That’s how far you’re thinking the NCAA Tournament.
“So, my lean would probably to be like at that point, you’re starting to think postseason and so maybe save that bye-week to try and get a little healthier. But you know me, I love every game every day. Let’s go.”
Pat Kelsey gives his take on the game occurring so early in season
Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey discussed the situation earlier this week. He, unlike Pope, made his frustrations known about the scheduling of the game.
“Well, first of all, it’s just kind of the way it worked out,” Kelsey said. “I think, if everybody had their druthers, it wouldn’t be that early in the season, but scheduling is difficult. I always liken it to putting a square peg in a round hole. It takes work getting dates to work with different teams.”
“When you mention, you know, what’s the positive of it? If you polled our fanbase, probably on both sides, it sounds like it would be about 99.9% (that) there are no positives – play it late. “But, you know, it’s a big game. And I think it’s an exciting thing for college basketball early on to kind of, to get it going a little bit. That’s something that’s going to be circled on every college basketball fan’s schedule early on. It will get things off to a great start.”
