LEXINGTON, Ky. — Another game has been revealed ahead of Kentucky basketball's 2025-26 basketball season, and it's a program the Big Blue Nation knows well.
The Georgetown Hoyas will visit Rupp Arena on Thursday, October 30 for an exhibition contest against the Cats.
Newly adopted NCAA rules permitting Division I programs to play in the preseason enabled the teams to add this early-season marquee contest to their respective schedules. The game will not count towards official records or statistics.
"This is going to sound terrible and uncalculating, but I love playing great teams all the time," Pope said in a recent press conference. "I love it; I think it's really important. Any time there is any chance we can get great teams to come into Rupp, we're going to take it. If it's in the exhibition season, the preseason or the conference season, we'll take it."
"When you play against great teams, it teaches you so much about yourself," Pope continued. "Getting the chance to do that in an exhibition where the cost may not be so high... It's not just the data you receive after the game and during the game. It's all of the energy and juice it adds to your locker room every day during the summer and during the fall. We're preparing and it's like: 'guys, this is coming way faster than you might anticipate.' I think those are all real bonuses."
Kentucky and Georgetown have played each other only twice in program history: a regular-season matchup in the 1921-22 season (in which the Hoyas won at home, 28-23), as well as the now-infamous Final Four showdown in 1984 (in which the Cats went cold in the second half, allowing Patrick Ewing and Georgetown to storm back for a 53-40 win) on their way to a National Championship title.
These days, Georgetown is led by head coach Ed Cooley, who is in his third year at the helm of the program. The Hoyas went 9-23 in his first season and improved to 18-16 in year two.
Junior Malik Mack, who started all 32 games in which he appeared a season ago, is the Hoyas’ leading returning scorer at 12.9 points per game. He also drained a team-high 59 3-pointers and connected at a 35.5 percent rate.
The Cats last faced Cooley in 2023, when John Calipari's Cats defeated Cooley's Providence Friars in the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky won the first-round matchup, 61-53 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Kentucky is also welcoming Purdue in an exhibition contest at home the week prior, on Friday, October 24.
"Matt Painter: I don't know if he's the best coach in college basketball, but he's certainly got to be counted among the top couple. What he's done at Purdue is incredible," Pope said of Purdue's head coach. "I have so much respect for him. He makes life really difficult for the teams that play against him because he's got a very unique, distinct style of play and a distinct style of coaching. On every front, that's going to be so fun."
"I'm just excited for BBN. We get to walk in here in late October and play the No. 1 team in the country. I'm really excited about that; I'm excited about that for our fan base, and we're working on another exhibition game [Georgetown] that I think is going to be terrific," Pope said before the Georgetown exhibition was officially announced.
A game time and television designation will be announced at a later date.
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