The latest edition of one of college basketball’s most intense rivalries will feature a Top 12 showdown, as Kentucky travels to Louisville.
There will be a domestic disturbance at My Old Kentucky Home on Tuesday night.
One of college basketball’s more intense rivalries will stage its latest as one of three matchups between ranked teams: the ninth-ranked University of Kentucky Wildcats will seek to continue their recent dominance of the No. 12 University of Louisville Cardinals, which will host the 58th all-time meeting between the Bluegrass State adversaries.
UK, which has won all but three of the past 17 get-togethers (including two showdowns in the NCAA Tournament), will engage in the only true road game on its non-conference slate. The Wildcats won each of their first two games to open this season, downing Nicholls 77-51 in its opener last Tuesday before handling business with a 107-59 decision over Valparaiso three days later.
In the latter game, true freshman Malachi Moreno led the way with an 18-point, 10-rebound double-double off the bench while all five Lexington starters reached double-figures in scoring. Despite losing top SEC 3-point shooter Koby Brea and leading rebounder Amari Williams to graduation, the Wildcats retained top scorer Otega Oweh, who earned 28 points and eight rebounds over the first two games. The Wildcats will also have head coach Mark Pope in tow, as the second-year blue boss managed to avoid jury duty thanks in part to the commemoration of Veterans Day.
Kentucky-Louisville Rivalry Game Matchup!
On the other side, Louisville likewise took advantage of a manageable opening schedule to get year two of the Pat Kelsey era off to a good start: the Cardinals reached three digits in each of their first two games, demolishing South Carolina State by a 104-45 final in last week’s opener before following that up with a 106-70 triumph over Jackson State on Thursday. In the more recent win over the Tigers, Ryan Conwell sank four 3-pointers en route to a team-best 19 points while Khani Rooths had a double-double at 16 points and 10 boards.
The Cardinals lost each of their top three scorers from last season (Terrence Edwards, Chucky Hepburn, Reyne Smith) but restocked with five-star recruit Mikel Brown Jr., fresh off an All-American campaign at DME Academy in Orlando. UL also raided the transfer portal with a potential-packed backcourt class, landing Conwell (Xavier), Isaac McKneely (Virginia), and Adrian Wooley (Kennesaw State) to a solid foundation partly headlined by the return of top rebounder J’Vonne Hadley.
👀 KENTUCKY TOPS LOUISVILLE 👀
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) December 15, 2024
A wire-to-wire win for @KentuckyMBB 🔥 pic.twitter.com/r6vdfPwyLb
This will be the 58th meeting in the Bluegrass bout, with Kentucky leading the set 40-17 (including 4-2 in the NCAA Tournament). The Wildcats will go for their first four-game winning streak in the set since 2013-15, having won last year’s tilt by a 93-85 final. The departed Lamont Butler scored 33 points on a perfect 10-of-10 night from the field while Oweh had 17 tallies, the last three coming on a crucial and-one that re-established a double-figured lead for the then-No. 5 Wildcats in the final minute. Hepburn scored 26 points for Louisville in defeat.
This will mark the first time that the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry has been staged in November since 1993, when UK took a 78-70 win in Lexington.
What: No. 9 Kentucky (2-0) at No. 12 Louisville (2-0)
Where: KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, KY
When/Watch: Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN
Who’s Favored: UL -4.5
Wildcat to Watch: Mouhamed Dioubate
To curb the high-flying Cardinal offense, Kentucky will have to be at the top of its defensive game. Touted portal acquisition Jayden Quaintance, fresh off an All-Defensive team tour at Arizona State, appears to be inching toward a countdown toward his blue debut, but he won’t be available on Tuesday night.
In his place could be fellow addition Dioubate, who moved to Lexington after two years at Alabama. He’ll be huge, literally and figuratively, in the quest to keep Kentucky’s interior prowess alive, as he put up six double-doubles with the Crimson Tide last season.
It was a defensive performance that allowed Dioubate to make a national name for himself in Tuscaloosa: following a brutal showing in the Tide’s conference opener against Oklahoma (in which he was charged with a flagrant foul for tripping then-Sooners star Jeremiah Fears), Dioubate played shutdown defense on future NBA lottery pick Collin Murray-Boyles, limiting the current Toronto Raptor to five points in a 20-point road win for the Tide.
Cardinal to Watch: Kasean Pryor
As if this matchup didn’t have enough to add on its poster, Pryor poured fuel all over the Bluegrass fire following Thursday’s win over Jackson State: per Connor Stanley of On3 Sports, Pryor essentially guaranteed an end to Kentucky’s dominance in the rivalry, adding a “f*** them” for good measure.
It’s perhaps hard to blame Pryor for his potential overzealousness: the 6-10 forward was fresh off his first action in just under a year after tearing his ACL during the most recent Battle 4 Atlantis. It’s safe to say that the Cardinals missed Pryor in their last get-together with Kentucky, as they were outrebounded by 10 in the most recent defeat.
While Pryor, who enjoyed a 2023-24 breakout at South Florida before transferring to Louisville, may still be getting his land legs back, his presence might give the Cardinals some confidence in the post. Pryor brought back his trademark physical brand back against the Tigers, picking up six points, three rebounds, and three fouls in 16 minutes.
Kentucky vs. Louisville isn’t Duke–UNC.
— Steven Peake (@StevenPeakeKSR) November 11, 2025
It’s uglier.
It’s funnier.
And we only get one shot at it every year.
Here’s what makes it the most intense rivalry in college basketball and why I’m so excited that it’s back:https://t.co/nlbeIozn8R pic.twitter.com/7qrT4ftCE3
They Said It
“Every single game is life or death, and we talk about it as a team, we talked about in our huddle at shootaround today, today was the biggest, toughest, most important game that we’ve played in this short season so far, and the same is going to be true when we go on the road to play Louisville and that’s every game. It’s the blessed part of playing at Kentucky that every game is the biggest game … In-state rivalry games are always fun and exciting. We can’t wait to get through the autopsy of [the Valparaiso] game and take what we can learn, and we will jump into [Louisville]. It’s just a beautiful thing.”—Pope (h/t Jack Pilgrim, On3 Sports)
Yes, Otega Oweh has seen Louisville’s trash talk. No, he does not have a response — that’s coming when the ball is tipped at the KFC Yum! Center
— Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) November 10, 2025
READ: https://t.co/WLhoyfA97X pic.twitter.com/fCOaVp6ST8
“What stands out is they’re very good. They’re very well-coached, they have positional size, they’re strong, they’re athletic, they’re physical from a defense perspective, and they’re good in their system from an offensive perspective. In a lot of ways, they’re a lot like us: they’re talented, they’re very deep, they play very fast on the offensive end, they’re very good in transition, and in the halfcourt they execute and they run their stuff.”—Kelsey on Kentucky (h/t Zack Geoghegan, On3 Sports)
Prediction
The beauty of this early-season treat is that neither side is at full strength, but their depth keeps things perfectly competitive and on pace to be one of the more consequential non-conference games on the docket. The fact that it brings one of the most intense in-state rivalries back to the forefront of the collegiate imagination is simply an added bonus.
That makes it all the more difficult to find the better team between these two sides, despite UK’s recent dominance in the affair. The Cardinals did what they could to up the ante in Kelsey’s second year in charge, and there’s a brilliant chance to make a statement at home. At this point, however, Kentucky’s defensive improvements may well give them the necessary edge to succeed not only in an intense rivalry showdown but on an intense further schedule that will also see ranked challenges from Michigan State, North Carolina, Gonzaga, and St. John’s.
Kentucky 88, Louisville 84
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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