As of early last week, Georgetown College men’s basketball coach Chris Briggs reported that he had received more than 40 requests for tickets to Thursday night’s Kentucky vs. Georgetown exhibition game at Rupp Arena.
Four times since 2005, the men’s hoops team from Georgetown College has made the 15.1-mile journey from the Scott County campus to Rupp Arena to face the UK Wildcats in a men’s hoops exhibition.
However, thanks to a new NCAA rule that allows Division I teams to face each other in exhibitions, Thursday night’s Kentucky vs. Georgetown preseason matchup features the Hoyas of the Big East, not the Tigers of the NAIA.
With the new policy, the days of Kentucky’s small-college teams getting a chance to play against UK on the big stage that is Rupp Arena “are probably over,” Briggs said.
In recent decades, few major organizations in American life have taken more incoming fire from critics than the NCAA. But in allowing D-I basketball teams to face each other in preseason contests, the college sports governing body has rendered a decision that seems broadly popular.
Kentucky men’s hoops coach Mark Pope, who, since becoming UK head man in 2024, has advocated for a 40-game college hoops regular season, relishes getting to play two more high-major teams via the new exhibition rule.
After the No. 9 Wildcats vanquished No. 1 Purdue 78-65 in a preseason game last Friday night before an announced Rupp Arena crowd of 19,906, Pope used sarcasm to endorse the new exhibition policy.
“I know BBN is totally frustrated about playing the No. 1 team in the country in an exhibition,” Pope joked.
Kentucky coach Mark Pope, right, spoke with Purdue head man Matt Painter, left, before the No. 9 Wildcats beat the No. 1 Boilermakers 78-65 in an NCAA men’s college basketball exhibition game last Friday at Rupp Arena. Ryan C. Hermens rhermens@herald-leader.com
It seems self-evident that the more balanced competition provided by D-I teams facing each other in exhibitions should yield better information for coaching staffs.
At schools of high basketball interest such as UK, home exhibition contests against other power conference opponents like Purdue (Big Ten) and the Georgetown Hoyas (Big East) are a potential revenue enhancer in an era when college athletics departments need to maximize earnings.
The new exhibition rule is all good — except for the schools from men’s college basketball’s lower divisions who used to get to play “the big boys” in exhibition season.
The ‘little guys’ lose out
From the time the NCAA began to allow NCAA Division I teams to play college teams from lower levels in 2004, the University of Kentucky has played 25 exhibition games vs. in-state teams.
Georgetown College, Kentucky State and Transylvania made the most exhibition appearances against UK at Rupp Arena, each playing four times.
Kentucky Wesleyan and the University of Pikeville each faced the Wildcats three times, while Asbury, Campbellsville, Centre, Lindsey Wilson, Morehead State (a Division I school allowed to play UK in an exhibition by the NCAA as a charity fundraiser in 2017-18), Northern Kentucky (when it was a NCAA Division II program) and Thomas More all made one appearance each vs. UK at Rupp.
The final margins were never close, ranging from NKU’s 18-point loss (91-73) to Kentucky in 2004-05 to Asbury’s 93-point thumping (156-63) by the Wildcats in 2016-17.
Even so, there was something gratifying about seeing small-college teams often filled with players from the Kentucky high school ranks getting a chance to play against UK at Rupp.
“It’s a total different deal, just the excitement around it,” Briggs said. “Getting down there to practice and getting in there when it’s empty, and then walking out there for warmups, and the fans start filing in. Our guys that had that experience absolutely loved it.”
In 2011-12, when NCAA Division III Transylvania played Kentucky in an exhibition for the first time in the modern histories of the two Lexington-based universities, Pioneers coach Brian Lane recalls the game starting and one particular UK player repeatedly leaving the paint to close out on Transy shooters — and block 3-point attempts.
Lane called timeout and told his players they were not to shoot if “they saw No. 23 was guarding them.” To this day, multiple members of the 2011-12 Transylvania Pioneers can tell you what it was like to have a shot blocked by Anthony Davis.
With the change to the exhibition rule — D-I schools can still “play down,” but the thought is they will be far less inclined to do so — the small schools are losing more than the chance to create memories.
The first of what became four modern Kentucky-Transylvania men’s hoops exhibitions came in 2011-12. It was on the 100-year anniversary of all three of the previous hoops meetings between the two Lexington-based universities.
“We had a pregame dinner the night before (the game) out at Keeneland, and we sold tickets. We had an auction,” Lane said. “And so, from a university (perspective), we were able to generate over $50,000.”
Briggs said the $20,000 financial guarantee UK paid the Tigers to play at Rupp Arena prior to the 2023-24 season had a massive impact on how the Georgetown team was able to travel that season.
Said Briggs: “We’re raising money all the time just to be able to eat at Chili’s and Outback (Steakhouse) a few times instead of Wendy’s and McDonald’s all the time. Or so we could stay in a Marriott Courtyard or Holiday Inn Express instead of a Super Eight. That $20,000 was a huge help.”
Both Lane and Briggs understand why it benefits UK more to play other Division I teams in exhibition season now that it is allowed than it would to play small-college foes.
“If you look at it from a power (conference) standpoint, their ability to play a team that will probably be like the teams in their league, I would certainly think that they see that as a huge plus,” Lane said.
Added Briggs: “We’re just super-grateful for the times that we were able to (play Kentucky).”
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Mark Story
Lexington Herald-Leader
Mark Story has worked in the Lexington Herald-Leader sports department since Aug. 27, 1990, and has been a Herald-Leader sports columnist since 2001. I have covered every Kentucky-Louisville football game since 1994, every UK-U of L basketball game but three since 1996-97 and every Kentucky Derby since 1994.
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