Folks, it’s finally here. Opening night in college basketball and the first official game for our University of Kentucky Wildcats. Tonight, they will take on the top-ranked team in the country, the Michigan State Spartans, in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Kansas will take on Duke in the first game at 7 p.m. EST and Kentucky will play Michigan State in the second game at 9:30 p.m. EST
Kentucky has been participating in the Champions Classic since 2011, so let’s take a look at the Wildcats’ previous performances.
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2011: #2 Kentucky 75 – #12 Kansas 65
Little did we know this was just a preview for that years National Championship game, which Kentucky took home.
The leading scorer that night was Doron Lamb with 17 points including three three-pointers. The National Player of the Year, Anthony Davis, 14 points, six rebounds, and SEVEN blocks.
2012: #3 Kentucky 68 – #9 Duke 75
This might be the best game Alex Poythress ever played at Kentucky considering he was projected to be the number one pick in mock drafts days after.
Poythress recorded 20 points with eight rebounds. And, Nerlens Noel had 16 points, eight rebounds, four steals, and three blocks.
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2013: #1 Kentucky 74 – #2 Michigan State 78
This game is basically a reverse of what we’ll see tomorrow night in terms of rankings, but this game ended the 40-0 talk quickly and showed us that one of the best recruiting classes ever, wasn’t quite worth all the hype.
After a terrible start, the Cats fought all the way back to tie the game in the second half, but Michigan State got a tip-in bucket late to seal the game.
James Young had 19 points and four rebounds. And, Julius Randle had 27 points, 13 rebounds, and eight turnovers.
2014: #1 Kentucky 72 – #5 Kansas 40
Crazy to think, but we had no idea as to what was ahead for this season. It ended bad, but got off to one hell of a start.
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“It’s like trying to play frisbee in the Redwood Forest.” – Jay Bilas
Willie Cauley-Stein had seven points and 10 rebounds. And, Karl Anthony Towns had nine points and eight rebounds.
2015: #2 Kentucky 74 – #5 Duke 63
Always a great game when you thump the Blue Devils. Might be one of the best games this team played all year.
Marcus Lee had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jamal Murray had 16 points, five rebounds, five assists, and four steals. Tyler Ulis had 18 points, four rebounds, six assists, and two steals. And, Alex Poythress had nine points and seven rebounds.
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2016: #2 Kentucky 69 – #13 Michigan State 48
This is definitely one of the most impressive opening games in the John Calipari era. I think we were all thinking #9 after this game.
Malik Monk had 23 points and six rebounds, including seven threes. De’Aaron Fox had 12 points, four rebounds, and six assists. And, Isaiah Briscoe had 21 points, four rebounds, and two assists.
2017: #7 Kentucky 61 – #4 Kansas 65
This game was tight until the very end. A Malik Newman (what happened to him?) three in the final minutes is probably what sealed the game for the Jayhawks. Well, that and the fact Kevin Knox tried a floater over the backboard to tie the game.
Kevin Knox had 20 points and seven rebounds. Hamidou Diallo had 14 points, five rebounds, and four assists. And, Sacha Killeya-Jones had eight points and nine rebounds.
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2018: #4 Duke 118 – #2 Kentucky 84
How about we pretend like this game never happened?
It was different to see Kentucky ranked 23rd in the preseason AP Poll, their lowest since the 2008 season. However, a week and a half into the season, they are already climbing the rankings.
Jumping to No. 19 in the AP Poll and No. 18 in the Coaches poll this week, the Wildcats will take another good jump when the updated polls are released Monday, after defeating sixth-ranked Duke in the Champion’s Classic 77-72. They will likely fall in the 11-14 range.
That said, some analysts believe Kentucky is a top 10 team, including one from CBS that has them ranked as the SECOND best team in the country.
It took all of three games for Mark Pope to capture a signature victory at Kentucky. UK outlasted No. 6 Duke on Tuesday in the Champions Classic, nailing 10 3s in the win and downing Duke despite a huge game from Blue Devils freshman phenom Cooper Flagg.
At halftime during the Champions Classic, it was fair to question whether Kentucky could consistently get points in a half-court setting against a strong opponent. Duke was keeping the Wildcats out of transition, and after an early barrage of 3s, the team’s attack had dried up. Then Mark Pope made some smart tweaks offensively, using Amari Williams and Brandon Garrison as playmakers in the middle of the floor, and Andrew Carr created matchup problems. The Wildcats answered a lot of questions with their second-half showing.
If the Wildcats are able to maintain this momentum and keep themselves high in the rankings, they will truly be one of the best stories of this college basketball season. A storied program, with a new coach and an entirely new roster.
The Kentucky Wildcats are coming off of a statement win against Duke. However, many of the national stories shortly after the game were about Duke and Cooper Flagg. Now one SportsCenter Host, Shae Peppler, is even discrediting the Wildcats, suggesting they’ve already peaked.
“It’s only their third game of the season,” Peppler said. “You talk about how he [Pope] totally rebuilt this roster from scratch and did it in such a short time. Now where does Kentucky go from here? They’ve already peaked, it feels like.”
To his credit, former Duke guard Jay Williams took up for the Cats quickly after they defeated his alma mater the night before. “No, no, they’re not peaking. You have a team full of veterans that know how to play.”
Mark Pope said postgame that he will be keeping the team off of social media, to prevent them from getting too high or low. This is a perfect example of why.
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“Where does Kentucky go from here? They’ve already peaked, it feels like.”
In just a few weeks, the Wildcats will have another big test as they take on the fourth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs in Seattle. They will look to prove themselves right, and prove the doubters wrong, again.
The days of most college basketball players spending three to four seasons with one school are long gone. For years elite freshmen have entered the draft after one season, and now the most talented experienced players are jumping into the portal to spend a season or two at bigger schools.
It’s hard to fault players for these moves, looking to better themselves and their careers. However, it does make it difficult for them to understand what a program means to its fanbase, and the history behind them, such as long-standing rivalries.
Despite assembling a team of 13 new players, including nine transfers, Mark Pope is doing his best to make sure his players understand the deep traditions and storied history of Kentucky Basketball.
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Prior to the Wildcats’ game against Duke in the Champions Classic, he had a video made to not only help them understand, but to feel the Kentucky-Duke rivalry.
“We started with a little bit of a hype video and just gave our guys context,” Pope said in a postgame radio interview with Matt Jones. “The beginning of the video is a bunch of Jack Givens highlights about his National Championship against Duke. Then, of course, in the Spectrum with Christian Laettner. Then the Comeback Cats national championship in ’98. It just gave our guys a sense of the context they were walking into in this game. Our guys were very, very aware of what this means.”
From the reactions and celebration after the game, you can tell the players got the message and felt the accomplishment of giving Big Blue Nation that win.