Big Blue Preview: Kentucky vs. Wright State
The preseason is in the books and now, No. 23 Kentucky is ready for the regular season. The Cats open the 2024-25 campaign by facing Wright State on Monday at Rupp Arena (7 p.m. ET, ESPNU).
UK cruised through a pair of exhibition wins against Division II competition. The Cats beat Kentucky Wesleyan 123-52 in the exhibition opener, placing eight players in double figures while making 21 of 42 from behind the arc. Then, UK topped Minnesota State 98-67 behind 24 points from Jaxson Robinson.
In the Minnesota State win, the Cats had some trouble early getting shots to fall. But UK head coach Mark Pope liked how his team responded.
“One of the best things about the (Minnesota State) game, there was all kinds of weirdness, we’re playing weird rotations against a really well-coached, good team,” Pope said. “There was all kinds of weirdness the first 14 minutes and I think the score was 23-20. (Over the next three minutes), our guys had gone on a 17-0 run and we hope that’s a defining feature of our team.”
Pope, who is preparing for his first game as head coach at his alma mater, likes a couple of the qualities that his team has that will allow them to assemble a game-defining run.
“There’s two things about it. The first part of that is that our guys are super resilient and we have a team that can go fix things,” Pope said. “We’re a veteran team, we see the game, we understand the game. And the second part is, we know it’s always coming. As aggressive as we are offensively and as solid as we can be defensively, we always know that it could be in the first five minutes of the game, it could be in the last seven minutes of the game, there’s going to be a two or three minute run where it’s going to be the death knell, where we get it done. I like those two features of this team.”
Kentucky’s opponent on Monday, Wright State, was 18-14 last season and returns some key pieces from last year’s squad. Among those are junior forward Alex Noel, who was selected as the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year for this season. Noel averaged 14.5 points and eight rebounds per game last year.
The preseason is over and, beginning on Monday, the Cats embark on a new regular season with a new head coach and, essentially, an entirely new team.
Kentucky in Season Openers
Now in its 123rd season of college basketball, Kentucky is 100-21 all-time in season openers entering the 2024-25 season (the Wildcats did not have a schedule in 1952-53 due to NCAA suspension). Included in Kentucky’s 100-21 all-time season-opening record was a 34-game winning streak from the 1927-28 season to the 1961-62 season.
• Kentucky is 105-16 all-time in home openers
• UK is 44-4 in the first game played in Rupp Arena
• The Wildcats are 7-0 in a head coach’s debut dating back to Adolph Rupp’s opener in 1930. Those wins include coaches Joe B. Hall, Eddie Sutton, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, Billy Gillisipie and John Calipari
• Mark Pope was on the opposing sideline as head coach of Utah Valley on Nov. 10, 2017 in the season opener and home opener for the Wildcats during the 2017-18 season. UK captured a 73-63 win, despite Pope’s squad owning a 34-22 lead at the break
• UK also played Wright State in the season opener to start the 1992-93 season. Kentucky earned an 81-65 victory in that contest
From Robin Hood Country to the Big Blue Nation
Kentucky center Amari Williams, who hails from Nottingham, England, was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s preseason watch list for the 2025 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Named after the Naismith Hall of Famer and NBA all-time scoring leader, the award is in its 11th year.
• Williams became the first player in Coastal Athletic Association league history to earn defensive player of the year honors in three consecutive seasons. A transfer from Drexel, he finished his career ranking fifth all-time with 186 blocked shots. Williams, a two-time All-CAA First-Team selection, also scored 1,081 career points and hauled in 732 career boards
• For his career, Williams has averaged 10.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game in 105 career outings. He has connected on 51.9% of his field-goal attempts and has recorded 24 career double-doubles. Williams has topped double-figure scoring in 63 games, while leading his team in blocked shots in 76 games
