Yahoo Sports First Scouting Report: Is Kentucky ready for a road test at Notre Dame?
An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 10 Kentucky (7-1, 0-0 SEC) will face Notre Dame (3-4, 0-1 ACC) on Saturday, Dec. 11, at the Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center (capacity: 9,149) in South Bend, Ind.
The game will tip off at 5:15 p.m. and be telecast by ESPN.
Coach Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish have not played since opening Atlantic Coast Conference play with a 73-57 loss at Boston College on Dec. 3.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series 43-20. Notre Dame, however, has won three of the past five meetings, including the two most recent games in South Bend.
Most recent meeting
The Fighting Irish raced to a 48-26 halftime lead and then held off a furious Kentucky rally for a 64-63 win in Rupp Arena on Dec. 12, 2020.
Notre Dame’s Nate Laszewski went for 21 points and nine rebounds and Prentiss Hubb added 18 points to lead the Irish.
It was the first victory ever for the Fighting Irish over the Wildcats in Lexington (for most of the history of the series, Kentucky and Notre Dame played on “neutral courts” in Louisville).
Power rankings
Through Monday’s games, the NCAA’s NET Rankings had Kentucky 39th and Notre Dame 150th.
The Kenpom Rankings rated UK No. 17 and Notre Dame No. 50.
Kentucky stood No. 21 in the Sagarin Ratings with Notre Dame at No. 94.
Know your foe
1. When a then-undefeated Kentucky survived Notre Dame 68-66 in the 2015 NCAA Tournament round of eight, it was the first year of three straight memorable seasons for Brey and the Fighting Irish.
After going 32-6 and winning the ACC Tournament in 2014-15, Brey followed that up the with a return trip to the NCAA tourney Elite Eight in 2016 and a 24-12 overall record.
In 2016-17, Notre Dame went 26-10, finished second in the ACC regular-season race and played in the NCAA Tournament again, falling to West Virginia in the round of 32.
At that point, Brey had led Notre Dame to nine NCAA Tournament trips in the previous 11 seasons.
Since then, however, men’s basketball success has become elusive in South Bend.
Starting in 2017-18 through this season’s first seven games, Notre Dame has gone a pedestrian 69-65. The Fighting Irish have not played in an NCAA tourney since 2017.
All of that is why the name of Brey, 62, has begun showing up on coaching “hot seat” lists.
2. Notre Dame returns four of the five starters who played against Kentucky in last season’s Fighting Irish victory over UK. Only 6-foot-11 center Juwan Durham has departed from among the ND starters in Rupp Arena last year.
Among the returning starters, senior wing Dane Goodwin leads the Irish in scoring (15 ppg) this season, while power forward Laszewski is Notre Dame’s leading rebounder (9.3 boards a game to go along with 8.5 ppg).
Guards Cormac Ryan (9.5 ppg) and Hubb (6 ppg, team-high 19 assists) are the other two returning starters.
Senior forward Paul Atkinson (12.3 ppg, 6.3 rpg) has replaced Durham in the Irish starting lineup.
3. True freshman Blake Wesley, the Notre Dame sixth man, has been the breakout player for the Fighting Irish in 2021-22.
A 6-5, 185-pound guard, Wesley is Notre Dame’s second-leading scorer at 13 ppg. He is shooting 53.8 percent from the field and 39.1 on three-point tries.
The graduate of Riley High School is the first men’s hoops player from a South Bend public school to sign with Notre Dame since 1985.
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