Pat Kelsey addresses scheduling of early date for Kentucky vs. Louisville

Many basketball fans in the bluegrass weren’t happy to see that the annual rivalry between Kentucky and Louisville would be played as early as it’s ever been this upcoming season, with a date set for November 11th inside the KFC Yum! Center. That’s the best that the Cardinals and the Wildcats could do, though.

In an interview with Jon Rothstein on ‘Inside College Basketball Now’ on Thursday, Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey addressed the early tip-off of this season’s game between his team and Kentucky, which is currently slated to be both teams’ season openers on Nov. 11th. He said it just happened that way amidst the other non-conference scheduling that each program had done, with that in-state game needing to be played at some point this winter, for ’25-’26.

“Well, first of all, it’s just kind of the way it worked out,” Kelsey said. “I think, if everybody had their druthers, it wouldn’t be that early in the season, but scheduling is difficult. I always liken it to putting a square peg in a round hole. It takes work getting dates to work with different teams.”

“Obviously, that’s a huge game in the state of Kentucky and you got to find a place for it, Kelsey said. “It just worked out that way this year.”

Mark Pope said much of the same when asked about it by the media back in May. His answer came with a jabbing joke at their rival too.

“Just scheduling. It just is, scheduling gets more increasingly and increasingly complicated. And so, I think it was, I think it was what worked about best,” Pope said. “I heard there might be a push, that people wanted that in December. Is that true? So, blame Louisville for that, okay. I actually don’t know how we got to the date, you know. There’s more important people dealing with those issues than me – but I’m sure it’s Louisville’s fault. I say that with all due respect to Pat.”

There have been 57 matchups all-time between Kentucky and Louisville, with UK leading the series at 40-17 and having gone 14-3 since 2010. That includes last season’s matchup, which represented both Pope and Kelsey’s debut in the rivalry, with the No. 5 Wildcats winning 93-85 over the Cardinals. Now, in the return trip this year to Louisville, this rivalry will be the earliest it’s ever been played, with only two other matchups played in November, with each being home wins for UK in the previous century on November 26th, 1983 and November 27th, 1993.

Still, again, both teams have a lot going on in their non-conference already. Louisville has loaded up in its non-con at Arkansas in the ACC/SEC Challenge, Indiana in Indianapolis, Memphis, at Tennessee, a reported matchup at some point against Cincinnati in Cincy, and Baylor in Fort Worth in February. Kentucky then also has Michigan State in the Champion’s Classic, North Carolina also in the ACC/SEC Challenge, Indiana too, and St. John’s in the CBS Sports Classic.

That said, Kelsey thinks there’s a positive in having their game that early, as it’ll almost signal a start to the college hoops season. That’s something that could draw more casual fans despite the ones in Louisville and Lexington not caring for it.

“When you mention, you know, what’s the positive of it? If you polled our fanbase, probably on both sides, it sounds like it would be about 99.9% (that) there are no positives – play it later,” Kelsey said. “But, you know, it’s a big game. And I think it’s an exciting thing for college basketball early on to kind of, to get it going a little bit.”

“That’s something that’s going to be circled on every college basketball fan’s schedule early on. It will get things off to a great start.”

This game isn’t just important to the state, as it’s likely to be a highly-rated matchup early on in the season with Kentucky coming to Louisville. That’s going to make it a must-watch, regardless of when it’s played or who may be upset about that date set for this specific season in order to have it.