UK-Duke is a huge one for Mark Pope. How did his predecessors do in their first big games?

The exhibition games were a cakewalk, and the Kentucky Wildcats didn’t get much competition in their first two regular-season matchups either.

Now comes the first major test of the Mark Pope era.

UK will face No. 6 Duke on Tuesday night in Atlanta for the latest edition of the Champions Classic, and Pope’s 19th-ranked Wildcats will have their work cut out for them against a roster of elite players, led by projected No. 1 NBA draft pick Cooper Flagg.

How will Pope fare in his first marquee game as Kentucky’s coach? We’re about to find out. How did his predecessors at Kentucky do in theirs? Here’s a look at the first “big game” results from every one of the last six UK coaches, from John Calipari to Joe B. Hall.

John Calipari

The game: No. 5 Kentucky vs. No. 10 North Carolina (Dec. 5, 2009, in Rupp Arena).

The result: Calipari coached seven games before he saw his first ranked opponent as Kentucky’s leader, with his Wildcats defeating fellow blue blood North Carolina 68-66 in front of an electric home crowd. Freshman guard John Wall provided the memories in this one, tallying 16 points, seven assists and three steals — and hitting two free throws in the final seconds to ice it — against his home-state team. The Cats fell behind 9-2 right off the bat, but Wall turned in back-to-back, one-man fast breaks — both ending in highlight-reel fashion — to get Kentucky rolling, and it wasn’t long before the Tar Heels were down double digits.

The aftermath: At the time, the Kentucky win was confirmation that the Cats were back, but the victory didn’t look like much in hindsight. UNC missed the NCAA Tournament after finishing 5-11 in the ACC, and UK didn’t play another top-10 team until losing to West Virginia in the Elite Eight.

Billy Gillispie

The game: Kentucky vs. No. 1 North Carolina (Dec. 1, 2007, in Rupp Arena).

The result: The Gillispie era was already off to a rocky start — the Cats lost by 16 points at home to Gardner-Webb in his second game as head coach — by the time the top-ranked Tar Heels came to town. Kentucky kept things relatively close early — and trailed by only five points at halftime — before Carolina turned on the gas and rolled to a safer-than-it-sounds 86-77 victory. Injuries were a hallmark of Gillispie’s tenure, and Jodie Meeks and Derrick Jasper were both forced to sit out this one, leaving the Cats shorthanded against a UNC team that ended up spending most of the season ranked No. 1.

The aftermath: It was the first of four consecutive losses for the Wildcats, who dropped games to Indiana, UAB, Houston, San Diego, Louisville, Mississippi State and Florida — falling to 7-9 on the season — before a turnaround earned SEC Coach of the Year honors and landed UK in the NCAA Tournament (where the Cats lost in the first round). The Tar Heels ended the season with the nation’s No. 1 ranking and lost to Kansas in the Final Four.

Tubby Smith

The game: No. 8 Kentucky vs. No. 1 Arizona (Nov. 25, 1997, in the Maui Invitational).

The result: Smith didn’t get much time to settle in as UK’s new coach, facing the nation’s No. 1 team in game three, less than a week after the season began. Arizona had knocked off Kentucky in overtime in the 1997 national title game several months earlier and returned Mike Bibby, Miles Simon, Jason Terry and the rest of its key players from that squad. The Maui Classic Invitational used quarters instead of halves, and Tubby’s Cats were down 14 by the end of the first period, ultimately losing 89-74 and trailing by double digits for the final 31-plus minutes. “They’ve got everybody back and we don’t,” Smith said. “Their bench is a lot different than ours. The only way to get experience is to play.”

The aftermath: The Wildcats figured things out. UK beat No. 13 Clemson, No. 6 Purdue and Indiana in an eight-day span shortly after the loss to Arizona, rolled through the SEC and won the national championship to cap Smith’s first season. Zona did just fine, too, finishing the season ranked No. 4 nationally and losing in the Elite Eight to eventual national runner-up Utah.

Rick Pitino

The game: Kentucky vs. No. 14 Indiana (Dec. 2, 1989, in Indianapolis).

The result: UK was in the first season of probation and at the beginning of a rebuild when Pitino met Bob Knight and IU in front of 40,000-plus fans in the Hoosier Dome in the second game of the season. The Cats almost pulled off the upset, leading Indiana at halftime before falling 71-69 in a game that came down to the final second. “I couldn’t be any more pleased,” Pitino said afterward. “Counting even the Alabama and Georgetown victories that got us (Providence) to the Final Four, I’ve never had a team give this much energy. I don’t think I’ve ever been this proud of a basketball team.” UK’s press forced Knight’s team into 25 turnovers, but the Cats shot just 36% from the field and made only 4 of 15 shots from deep.

The aftermath: The reality of the rebuild struck the following week, when No. 2 Kansas beat Kentucky 150-95 in Allen Fieldhouse, but the Wildcats went on to finish the season 14-14 as Pitino’s playing style resonated with UK fans, who enjoyed several seasons of national success after that first year. Indiana ended up with an 18-11 record, getting into the NCAA Tournament as an 8 seed and losing in the first round.

Eddie Sutton

The game: No. 9 Kentucky vs. No. 19 Indiana (Dec. 7, 1985, in Rupp Arena),

The result: The Wildcats won each of their first four games in the Sutton era by at least 19 points before Bob Knight’s Hoosiers came to Rupp missing their best player. Steve Alford was forced to sit out, serving a one-game suspension for violating the NCAA’s name, image and likeness rules. (Alford had posed for a calendar used in an Indiana sorority’s charity fundraiser.) The game was still close, with Kentucky coming up with some key plays down the stretch to pull out a 63-58 victory.

The aftermath: A week after the Indiana game, UK lost by 15 points to No. 7-ranked Kansas but ended up with a 32-4 record for Sutton’s first season, sweeping the SEC regular-season and tournament titles before earning a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, ultimately losing to 11-seeded LSU in the Elite Eight. Indiana was a 3 seed that season — and Alford ended up as a first-team All-American — but the Hoosiers were upset by 14-seeded Cleveland State in the first round.

Joe B. Hall

The game: No. 8 Kentucky vs. No. 13 North Carolina (Dec. 11, 1972, in Freedom Hall).

The result: UK started the first season of the post-Adolph Rupp era with three Big Ten opponents — beating Michigan State, then losing to Iowa and Indiana — before meeting the Tar Heels in Freedom Hall for a battle of top-15 teams. It was eventful, to say the least. Hall received two technical fouls for berating referees, the pro-UK crowd in Louisville was cautioned for throwing objects onto the court, there were physical scuffles during the game, in which the officiating “wasn’t on the highest order” — according to the Herald-Leader’s report the following day. In the end, UNC’s 20-point halftime lead evaporated to a six-point advantage, but Dean Smith went to his “four corners” offense and effectively ran out the clock on a 78-70 victory. (Fun fact: the leading scorer in the game was UNC’s George Karl, who coached Mark Pope — and was one of his greatest coaching influences — three decades later in the NBA.)

The aftermath: The loss to UNC dropped the Cats to 1-3 for their worst start since 1926, but Hall’s first team recovered to win the SEC and finish the season with the No. 17 AP ranking before losing to Indiana in the NCAA Tournament. The Hoosiers weren’t ranked when they beat UK in the third game of the season, but IU finished with the No. 6 national ranking and made the Final Four. UNC finished 11th in the AP poll but lost in the ACC Tournament and ended up in the NIT.

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