With the announcement of several games over the last few months, everyone has known for some time now that Kentucky’s 2014-15 nonconference schedule was going to be special.Just how special became clear on Wednesday with the release of UK’s full nonconference slate.Kentucky will play 10 opponents who made the postseason in 2014, seven NCAA Tournament teams and a handful of programs who have legitimate hopes of making a run at the Final Four during this upcoming season.UK will play bluebloods like Kansas and North Carolina, continue arguably the greatest rivalry in college basketball with Louisville, and make neutral-site trips to the United Center in Chicago and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, home to two of the Cats’ exhilarating games during their magical 2014 NCAA Tournament run and the site of the 2015 Final Four.Like last year, Kentucky will kick off the season with back-to-back home games at Rupp Arena, this time against Grand Canyon University (Nov. 14) and Buffalo (Nov. 16). John Calipari is hoping the home games will prepare his team for an early-season showdown with Kansas on Nov. 18 in Indianapolis. The matchup with the Jayhawks, who trail only UK for the NCAA’s most all-time wins, is a part of the State Farm Champions Classic. It’s the fourth straight year Kentucky has participated in the event.The Cats’ stay on the road will be brief as they will return for an extended home stand. Over the course of nearly a month, UK will play eight games within the friendly confines of Rupp Arena. First up will be Boston (Nov. 21), followed by Montana State (Nov. 23), UT Arlington (Nov. 25) and Providence (Nov. 30). Kentucky played and beat the latter two last season.The schedule then heats up at the start of December.The Cats, who return eight scholarship players from last season’s national runner-up team, will face off with an equally experienced Texas team on Dec. 3 before taking on Eastern Kentucky (Dec. 7), an NCAA Tournament team a year ago, and Columbia (Dec. 10).The final three games of the nonconference schedule are as good as it gets. North Carolina concludes UK’s mega home stand on Dec. 13 before the Cats head to Chicago to face UCLA for the inaugural CBS Sports Classic on Dec. 20.Finally, Kentucky will close out the nonconference schedule with its annual rivalry game with Louisville on Dec. 27 at the KFC Yum! Center. This year’s game is being dubbed as the Basketball Hall of Fame Shootout. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.UK’s 2014 Southeastern Conference schedule will feature nine home games and nine away games, which will be announced at a later date. It’s the second third straight year the SEC will feature an 18-game schedule.Prior to the regular season, the Cats will host a pair of exhibition games at Rupp Arena. The first will be Nov. 2 against Pikeville followed by Georgetown College on Nov. 7. Both are in-state schools. Big Blue Madness is set for Oct. 17 and the annual Blue-White Scrimmage will be on Oct. 27.Complete games times and TV information will be released at a later date.A by-the-numbers breakdown of the schedule is available below, but first a look at the full nonconference schedule.

By the numbersThe schedule this season, as we mentioned above, is grueling. Filled with some of the bluebloods of college basketball, opponents that made the NCAA Tournament last season and are only supposed to get better this year, and mid-majors who are expected to finish at or near the top of their league, it’s hard to find a more challenging nonconference schedule than the one the Wildcats appear to have this year.And that’s not by coincidence.Coach Cal, with the recent help of UK Deputy Director of Athletics DeWayne Peevy, has always tried to form a slate that will prepare his players for the NCAA Tournament and put them in a position to compete for a national championship. The end goal is to bolster his team’s RPI, give his players the best chance to succeed and help his program obtain a favorable NCAA Tournament seed, but he must do all that while making sure he doesn’t break down his players before the SEC schedule rolls around.Doing that isn’t always easy.How many big-time games against the likes of a team like Kansas is enough? How many is too many? How many neutral-site games do you play? When do you play marquee games with such a young team? What “mid-major” opponents are going to help your RPI and not hurt it? All those things go into consideration when Calipari and his staff build the schedule.The 2014-15 schedule uses the same formula of the last couple of years in that it mixes neutral-site games that reflect an NCAA Tournament setting with marquee matchups at home and on the road.But this one, on paper, looks to be the best of the Calipari era.Taking the final rankings from last year, the average RPI of UK’s nonconference opponent in 2014-15 is 97.4. Six opponents on the slate finished last season in the all-important RPI top 50, including five of the final seven nonconference opponents. Furthermore, the Cats’ 13 opponents in the upcoming year posted a winning percentage of .655 last season, considerably better than the .570 winning percentage UK’s 13 opponents in 2012-13 ended with and still better than last year’s admirable mark of .634. Remember, Kentucky’s strength of schedule last season was No. 2 in the country and this one appears to be even tougher.But perhaps the most telling proof of the difficulty of the schedule lies in the opponents’ postseason play last year. Ten of the 13 nonconference opponents were in some sort of postseason tournament last season (that does not include conference tournaments) and seven of them were in the NCAA Tournament. Five of the teams made it to the third round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament or farther.Obviously there is no way to predict how those opponents will do next season, but the majority of UK’s opponents look primed to build on their 2013-14 success.For one, Kentucky’s most high-profile opponents next season — Kansas, Louisville, North Carolina, Texas and UCLA — return a bulk of their major producers from a year ago. All five are expected to be in the preseason top 25 and several could be in the top 10.But the depth of the schedule comes with teams like Providence, Eastern Kentucky and Boston. The Friars play an exciting style of basketball that brought out the best in Willie Cauley-Stein last season, EKU nearly knocked Kansas out of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, and Boston is expected to return four of its six leading scorers from its regular-season Patriot League championship squad.It’s impossible — and unwise — for Kentucky to avoid scheduling “mid-major” opponents, but UK can ill-afford to take those opponents lightly in 2014-15. Of UK’s seven opponents from outside the so-called “major” conferences, five finished tied for third or better in 2013-14 regular-season play and one (Boston) finished atop the conference. That fits right in line with Calipari’s philosophy to play teams that will content for their leagues’ automatic bids.Also of note, 13 of Kentucky’s nonconference opponents will hail from 11 different conferences. UK will also play three opponents for the first time.For those numbers and more, check out the breakdown chart below: