Mark Pope says "blame Louisville" for the early Kentucky-Louisville rivalry game, so we will

Kentucky‘s annual rivalry game with Louisville will be played earlier than ever this upcoming basketball season, set for November 11, 2025. The recent announcement of the game’s new place on the calendar was poorly received by both sides of the rivalry, with each fan base clamoring for its traditional spot around Christmas in late December.

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope was asked about the drastic scheduling change on Tuesday, to which he, jokingly, put all of the blame on Louisville. Pope said, “Scheduling gets more increasingly, increasingly complicated, and, so, I think it was, I think it was what worked out best. I heard there might be a push, that people wanted that in December. Is that true? So, blame Louisville for that.”

After receiving a collective laugh from the audience at Tuesday’s Q&A, Pope confessed that he doesn’t know exactly how the game ended up in the second week of the college basketball season.

“There are more important people dealing with those issues than me, but I’m sure it’s Louisville’s fault,” he said, doubling down.

“I say that with all due respect to Pat (Kelsey),” Pope added. “He’s incredible.”

[Louisville got tired of Kentucky ruining Christmas every year]

Pat Kelsey: “Scheduling is hard.”

Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey also went on the record about the Battle of the Bluegrass’s move to November. Kelsey told the Courier-Journal, “Scheduling is hard. It’s like putting a square peg in a round hole, because what works for one school doesn’t work for the other, and you’ve just got to negotiate through it… It is another edition of the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry. It’s gonna be fun this year.”

Scheduling complications aside, we here at KSR prefer Pope’s lighthearted explanation, that it’s all Louisville’s fault for messing up the timing of the rivalry game.

Blame Louisville. Always blame Louisville.