Who will UK basketball play in Mark Pope’s first season? Here’s the schedule so far.

The first night of the 2024-25 college basketball season is still nearly five months away — with the real games set to tip off Nov. 4 — but there’s no shortage of anticipation for Kentucky’s upcoming campaign.

The Wildcats will have a new head coach, of course, with Mark Pope’s return to Lexington reigniting a fan base that has been longing for the type of postseason success the program enjoyed during his playing days after spending the past several years in the NCAA Tournament wilderness.

Can Pope deliver in year one? The national experts aren’t sold yet, some of whom don’t even have UK on their preseason top-25 lists, taking a wait-and-see approach to the Cats’ entirely new roster that — even by many of the doubters’ accounts — should be talented enough to contend.

Aside from the newness of the team itself, a major hurdle for Kentucky next season will be its opponents. The SEC is stacked once again, and the nonconference schedule is loaded, too.

Through a series of open records requests and questions aimed at basketball officials inside and outside of the commonwealth, the Herald-Leader has compiled the latest on the 2024-25 schedule. Here’s a look at what we know about the Cats’ upcoming slate.

Kentucky vs. Duke

The first major test of the Pope era will come in the Champions Classic on Nov. 12 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where the Wildcats will meet Duke for the first time since Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski left the Blue Devils at the end of the 2021-22 season.

Jon Scheyer is heading into his third year as Duke’s head coach and is likely to have a top-10 team by the time this game rolls around. The early ESPN rankings have the Blue Devils at No. 8 nationally, and the CBS Sports Top 25 puts Duke at No. 9 in the country.

Scheyer returns Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster from last season’s Elite Eight squad, but the headlines on this Duke team will go to freshman Cooper Flagg, widely regarded as a generational talent and projected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft. The 6-foot-9 forward is the top prospect in the country and leads the Blue Devils’ No. 1-ranked recruiting class.

According to a copy of the most recent Champions Classic contract obtained by the Herald-Leader, the event is currently agreed to through the 2025-26 season, and UK will face Michigan State (at a location yet to be determined) during that campaign.

Kentucky is 1-3 in Champions Classic games against Duke and has lost five of its last six meetings with the Blue Devils.

SEC/ACC Challenge

Another marquee event toward the front of the 2024-25 schedule will pit Kentucky against a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference in the SEC/ACC Challenge, which will return for its second installment this season.

That opponent is not yet set, though last year’s pairings were revealed in late June, and an SEC official told the Herald-Leader that the 2024-25 matchups were expected to be announced sometime this month. The Herald-Leader was also told that the SEC/ACC Challenge games will once again be played on the Tuesday and Wednesday after Thanksgiving, which means that UK will face an ACC squad on either Dec. 3 or Dec. 4.

Miami was Kentucky’s opponent last year — the Cats defeated the then-No. 8 Hurricanes 95-73 in Rupp Arena — and league officials have told the Herald-Leader that organizers will attempt — as best they can — to alternate home and road games for the participants, which means it’s more likely than not that Kentucky will have an away game in the event this season — against a team that had to travel last year.

Obviously, UK will not play Duke or Louisville, with both of those schools already on the nonconference schedule.

The six ACC teams (other than Duke) that went on the road in the Challenge last season: Boston College, Clemson, Miami, N.C. State, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech.

Conference realignment will add a wrinkle to this event. The ACC is adding three teams for next season — California, SMU and Stanford — while the SEC is adding two schools: Oklahoma and Texas. That will put the ACC at 18 teams and the SEC at 16, so there can be no more than 16 total games as part of this year’s Challenge.

An ACC official told the Herald-Leader that it has not yet been confirmed how many games will be played, and which two (or more) ACC programs will not be included this year. Last season, Louisville was the only ACC team that was left out, since the Cardinals had finished last in the league the previous season. U of L also finished last in the ACC this past season.

Also, this event was called the ACC/SEC Challenge last year, but the SEC will be listed first this season, and the two leagues will swap order in future installments.

The Gonzaga trip

The friendship between Gonzaga coach Mark Few and longtime UK coach John Calipari led to a six-game agreement between the two programs back in 2022, and — even though Calipari has left Lexington for Arkansas — the deal is still on.

This year, the Cats and the Zags will play in Seattle — about 275 miles from Gonzaga’s campus — and that game is scheduled for Dec. 7 at Climate Pledge Arena (the former home of the Seattle SuperSonics).

Former UK signee Nolan Hickman is expected to be one of the key players for Gonzaga, which is also expected to be a preseason top-10 team. ESPN has the Zags at No. 5 nationally, and CBS Sports ranks them at No. 8.

The UK-Gonzaga game will be played in Nashville during the 2025-26 season, with UK hosting in Rupp Arena in 2026-27 and the Cats playing their first game at McCarthey Athletic Center (aka The Kennel) in 2027-28.

Gonzaga has won the first two meetings in the series, including an 89-85 victory in Rupp Arena last season.

UK-Louisville rivalry game

According to a document obtained by the Herald-Leader, both UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart and U of L AD Josh Heird have agreed to play the annual rivalry game between the Cats and the Cards on Dec. 14 in Rupp Arena, with a tip time not yet confirmed.

Both programs will be entering a new chapter in their celebrated histories, with Pope taking over for Calipari at Kentucky and Pat Kelsey entering his first season as Louisville’s coach, replacing longtime UK assistant Kenny Payne.

Kelsey, like Pope, had to build his 2024-25 roster from scratch, though he’s put together what should be a formidable bunch for his first season. The Cards are not included in the latest top-25 rankings from ESPN or CBS Sports, but they have received mention on various preseason lists as a team just outside of that range.

The CBS Sports Classic

The current contract for the CBS Sports Classic has Kentucky playing Ohio State on Dec. 21 (with North Carolina and UCLA facing off in the other game), and — while it’s not yet confirmed — the expectation is that Madison Square Garden in New York will host this season’s event.

The Herald-Leader was told last week that the location for that game is expected to be officially announced relatively soon.

CBS Sports ranks the Buckeyes as the No. 15 team in the country for next season, so this projects as another difficult early test for Pope and the Wildcats. It will also be an occasion to see a couple of familiar faces. Former UK forward Aaron Bradshaw transferred to OSU this offseason, and ex-Kentucky assistant Joel Justus is now the associate head coach of the Buckeyes.

UK has not played Ohio State in five years, and the Cats have lost both of their previous meetings with the Buckeyes in the CBS Sports Classic.

Western Kentucky in Rupp

The details are not yet announced, but UK and Western Kentucky are expected to play as part of this season’s MTE (multi-team event). That game will be in Rupp Arena during the early portion of the Wildcats’ schedule.

The MTE will feature four teams — UK, WKU, Lipscomb and one other program — and the Cats will host all three in Rupp, while the other teams will play each other in various locations.

Western Kentucky will also have a new coach next season. Hank Plona takes over after the departure of Steve Lutz, who became head coach at Oklahoma State earlier this year after leading the Hilltoppers to the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Plona was an assistant coach with the team last season.

This will be just the eighth meeting between UK and WKU, with the Cats leading the all-time series 5-2.

The UK-Indiana series

A reminder that Kentucky is set to renew its border rivalry with Indiana, but that won’t happen until the 2025-26 season, when the Cats are scheduled to host the Hoosiers in Rupp Arena on Dec. 20, 2025. The two teams will play in Indianapolis in 2026, Rupp in 2027 and Bloomington in 2028.

Kentucky and Indiana have not played a regular-season game since 2011, when the Hoosiers defeated the eventual national champion Wildcats in Bloomington. The two sides had met annually for more than four decades up until that point.

The UK-Indiana matchup in Rupp next year will highlight a 2025-26 nonconference schedule that already features games against Michigan State (Champions Classic), UCLA (CBS Sports Classic), Gonzaga (in Nashville) and Louisville (at Yum Center), plus the ACC/SEC Challenge and an expected meeting with Rick Pitino and St. John’s in Rupp Arena.

During his introductory press conference two months ago, Pope teased a return to the Maui Invitational — Calipari kept UK out of that event — but the Cats won’t be in Hawaii as part of that 2025-26 schedule. The 2025 Maui field was announced last month, and Texas was the lone school from the SEC.

SEC basketball schedule

Along with that tough nonconference slate, the SEC might end up as the top league in college basketball next season.

Kentucky will play each program in the now-16-team conference at least once, with home-and-home series against Alabama, Tennessee and Vanderbilt adding up to an 18-game schedule. Alabama is ranked by some outlets as the No. 1 team in the country, with Tennessee generally slotted inside the top 15 nationally.

Arkansas, Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M are also widely considered to be preseason top-25 teams. The Cats will play all four of those opponents in Rupp Arena, with Calipari’s return — alongside ex-UK players Zvonimir Ivisic, Adou Thiero and D.J. Wagner, plus three former Kentucky recruits — likely to be circled on many calendars.

In addition to those teams, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi included Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss and Texas in his latest offseason Bracketology for a total of 11 SEC representatives.

The dates for those SEC matchups have not yet been announced. That reveal has come in early September in recent years. An SEC official told the Herald-Leader on Monday that the league games will begin Saturday, Jan. 4.

The full breakdown of Kentucky’s games inside the SEC:

▪ Rupp Arena: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, LSU, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

▪ On the road: Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Vanderbilt.

The 2025 SEC Tournament will be played March 12-16 in Nashville.

2025 NCAA Tournament

Pope didn’t waste any time embracing the national championship expectations — he won an NCAA title as a Kentucky player in 1996, after all — upon taking over as UK’s head coach, referencing the banners in Rupp Arena as part of his April introduction to the fans.

Lexington will be one of the eight first-weekend hosts for the 2025 NCAA Tournament, but the Wildcats will not be allowed to play postseason games in Rupp Arena, so — assuming they make the 68-team field — they’ll be sent elsewhere.

The other seven sites for the opening week of March Madness will be — in order of proximity to UK’s campus — Cleveland, Milwaukee, Raleigh, Wichita, Providence, Denver and Seattle.

The four regional sites for the 2025 tournament are Newark (East), Atlanta (South), Indianapolis (Midwest) and San Francisco (West).

The 2025 Final Four will be played on April 5 and 7 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

And Selection Sunday is already scheduled for March 16, a little more than nine months away.

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