Five things you need to know from No. 9 Kentucky’s 78-65 win vs. No. 1 Purdue in a NCAA men’s college basketball exhibition game:
1. The Kentucky starters. It was an exhibition game, so it doesn’t count, but former Harlan County star Trent Noah made his first college start Friday.
The 6-foot-5 Noah joined Alabama transfer Mouhamed Dioubate, returnees Brandon Garrison and Otega Oweh and Florida transfer Denzel Aberdeen in the UK starting lineup.
With expected starting point guard Jaland Lowe out with a shoulder injury, Aberdeen started the game at lead guard for Kentucky.
Sophomore Collin Chandler was the first substitute by Kentucky coach Mark Pope.
UK also played Jasper Johnson, Malachi Moreno, Andrija Jelavic and Kam Williams, using a 10-player rotation prior to halftime.
What Kentucky put on display — and remember the Wildcats were playing without two of their three most highly-regarded players in Lowe and center Jayden Quaintance — was its abundant depth.
Of the 10 players UK played, eight scored at least six points; seven had at least three rebounds; four had at least two assists.
There was all but no dropoff when Pope went to his bench.
UK is going to bury a lot of teams in 2025-26 with is depth.
2. UK’s 3-point shot taking. Since taking the Kentucky head coaching job prior to 2024-25, Mark Pope has frequently stated his goal is for the Wildcats to average between 30 and 35 3-point shot attempts a game.
Last season, the Wildcats did not reach Pope’s goal. The 2024-25 Cats took 910 treys in 36 games, an average of 25.3 3-point attempts a contest. UK converted 341 of its 910 3-point tries last year for a percentage of 37.5.
Against Purdue, Kentucky rifled up 16 treys in the first half alone, making five.
In half two, UK was 4 of 13 on treys.
Add it up, that made the Wildcats 9 of 29 from behind the arc.
3. Homegrown Cats shine. It was a good opening night for UK’s Kentuckians.
Ex-Woodford County star Jasper Johnson came off the bench and led Kentucky in scoring with 15 points. The 6-foot-5, 180-pound freshman hit 6 of 10 shots, 3 of 7 3-pointers and finished with 15 points and three assists.
After earning the start, former Harlan County star Trent Noah made 3 of 6 shots, half of his four 3-point attempts and finished with 10 points.
Ex-Great Crossing star Malachi Moreno hit 4 of 5 field-goal tries and had eight points and four boards.
Late in the second half, the Kentucky natives ripped off an 8-0 run that had the Rupp Arena crowd roaring.
It began when Moreno powered in a layup over Purdue center Oscar Cluff with 4:09 left. Noah followed that with a trey from the top of the key at 3:34. Johnson then put a crescendo on the home-state run with a trey off the left wing.
That made the UK lead 74-57 and forced a Matt Painter timeout with 3:05 left in the game.
4. Kentucky’s extends long win streak in exhibitions. With the win over Purdue, UK has now won 34 exhibition contests in a row.
The last time the Wildcats lost in an exhibition remains Aug. 17, 2014, a 63-62 loss to the Dominican Republic National Team in Nassau, Bahamas.
All-time, Kentucky is now 155-12 in exhibition games.
The matchup with Purdue was only the second time in UK men’s basketball history that the Wildcats have played a NCAA Division I opponent in an exhibition game.
On October 30, 2017, Kentucky beat Morehead State 92-67 in the only other exhibition meeting between the Cats and a D-I foe.
5. Last year’s Final Four teams in exhibitions. If you wondered, the last four teams standing in the 2025 NCAA Tournament went undefeated in exhibition games — although none of them played the AP Top 25 preseason No. 1 (which was Kansas).
Duke obliterated NCAA Division II Lincoln (PA) 107-56, then rocked Arizona State 103-47 in a game that raised money for the Duke Children’s Hospital.
Auburn traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, and beat Furman 83-62, then came home and routed Florida Atlantic 102-70 in a contest that raised money for Auburn University’s Melton Scholars Program.
National runner-up Houston played only one exhibition, a 79-64 victory over Texas A&M that raised funds for the Greater Houston Alliance Hurricane Beryl Recovery Fund.
Interestingly, Florida started its run to the 2025 NCAA title by not playing any exhibition games.
This story was originally published October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM.
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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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