Hoops’ schedule is difficult to navigate
November 12, 2014
By Joshua Huff
UK Hoops’ season gets underway this Friday when Appalachian State heads into town. However, with all due respect to the Mountaineers, the season for UK doesn’t truly begin until No. 8 Baylor walks through the doors of Rupp Arena on Monday.
The matchup against the Lady Bears is a rematch of the four-overtime thriller in December, which UK narrowly won, 133-130, in Arlington, Texas.
The game against Baylor though, is just the beginning of a UK schedule that, based on preseason rankings, consists of eight games against the nation’s Top 25 teams.
Of those games, five are against teams in the Top 10 and three are games against rivals from the SEC.
Picking up after the Baylor game will be a matchup against No. 12 Louisville on Dec. 7 in the annual Battle for The Bluegrass, a game that UK won last season, 74-69.
UK will then head down to the heart of ACC country on Dec. 21 when they take on No. 7 Duke, a team that UK lost to, 67-61, in Rupp Arena last December.
The start of a new year will usher in SEC play and the Cats will take another trip down to the Carolinas when they play SEC rival and preseason favorite South Carolina on Jan. 11, a game which may start to shape the SEC landscape.
The calamity within the SEC continues when the 2013-2014 SEC champions, No. 4 Tennessee, makes the trip up to Lexington on Jan. 29 to play the first of two games this season. UK split the season series against the Volunteers in 2013-14, winning the regular season contest but falling to Tennessee in the SEC championship game.
Less than a month separates the second game between the two teams, as the Cats will travel down to Knoxville on Feb. 15 to face the Volunteers in the hostile environment of the orange and white.
Four days later, on Feb. 19, UK faces No. 5 Texas A&M for the first and only time during the regular season. The Cats played against the Aggies once last season, winning by nine points down in College Station, Texas.
UK ends the regular season by opening the month of March with one final game against South Carolina on March 1. The game will be a lead-in to the SEC Tournament on March 4.
