Kentucky vs Nicholls basketball score updates, start time, TV channel for UK season opener

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LEXINGTON — Kentucky basketball isn’t undefeated in openers at storied Rupp Arena.

But it’s pretty darn close.

Entering tonight’s 2025-26 lid lifter versus Nicholls, UK is 45-4 all time in openers at Rupp. That’s a winning percentage of 91.8. It hasn’t lost Game 1 at Rupp since 2008 (a 111-103 defeat to Virginia Military Institute). The only other setbacks in Rupp openers were to Western Kentucky (in 2001), Penn State (in 2000) and Northwestern State (in 1988).

Watch Kentucky basketball’s opener vs. Nicholls

Tonight marks the first time the Wildcats have faced the Colonels.

Nicholls is entering its third season under Tevon Saddler, who at 30 years old is the youngest head coach in Division I men’s basketball. He’s helped the Colonels to back-to-back 20-win seasons. Only three players are back from last season’s squad, however: guards Trae English and Jaylen Searles along with forward Sincere Malone.

Nicholls is 0-30 all time versus teams ranked in the AP Top 25 and 0-4 in Saddler’s tenure. That sounds like bad news when noting the Wildcats are No. 9 in the AP rankings — the same slot they occupy in the USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll.

But these Cats claim they aren’t overlooking the Colonels.

“You can’t underestimate anybody,” freshman guard Jasper Johnson said in a news conference Monday morning. “I know Nicholls has a great team, a great coaching staff.

“And I know they’re coming in hungry, trying to take us down.”

Junior forward Brandon Garrison tossed out a few descriptors of tonight’s foe.

Physical.

A team where every player “can really shoot.”

High-level athletes.

“And you know they (are) going to come out here hungry, just like every other team,” he said. “They get to play in Rupp Arena. Everybody (dreams) of it. So (I’m) just going out there and giving it all.”

After dropping its exhibition finale to Georgetown University on Oct. 30 — that loss followed a win over top-ranked Purdue in another preseason exhibition Oct. 24 — Kentucky pursues a bounce-back victory tonight.

Can coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats start the 2025-26 season on a high note? Or will the Colonels engineer a stunning upset in Lexington?

Courier Journal sports reporter Ryan Black and columnist C.L. Brown are at Rupp Arena and will have live updates throughout the game — here and on X, formerly known as Twitter — and complete coverage after. You can follow them on X at @RyanABlack and @clbrownhoops.

UK guard Denzel Aberdeen didn’t take the floor in last week’s exhibition loss to Georgetown, as he was battling a leg injruy.

Expected to be a starter for the Wildcats, he didn’t appear in the lineup for tonight’s opener against Nicholls. But at the 13:58 mark of the first half, Aberdeen checked in.

Less than a minute later, he drilled a 3-pointer to extend Kentucky’s lead to 8-2.

UK point guard Jaland Lowe injured his shoulder during the Blue-White game on Oct. 17.

He hasn’t played since.

Read more about Lowe’s injury here.

Here are Kentucky’s starters vs. Nicholls:

And here’s Georgetown’s lineup:

The game between the Wildcats and Colonels will not air on a traditional television channel.

Instead, it will be streamed live on SEC Network+, a complementary digital platform to the linear SEC Network run by ESPN.

Authenticated subscribers can access SEC Network+ via TV-connected devices or by going to WatchESPN.com, the WatchESPN app or ESPN+.

Stream Kentucky basketball’s game vs. Nicholls on SEC Network+

Tom Leach (play-by-play) and Jack Givens (analyst) will have the UK radio network call on 840 AM in Louisville and both 630 AM and 98.1 FM in Lexington.

You can also listen online via UKAthletics.com.

• Oct. 17: Blue-White game (Click here to read takeaways from the intrasquad scrimmage.)
• Oct. 24: exhibition vs. Purdue (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 78, Purdue 65
• Oct. 30: exhibition vs. Georgetown University (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Georgetown 84, Kentucky 70
• Nov. 4: Nicholls (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Nov. 7: Valparaiso (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Nov. 11: at Louisville (KFC Yum! Center), 8 p.m.
• Nov. 14: Eastern Illinois (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Nov. 18: vs. Michigan State (Champions Classic; Madison Square Garden, New York), 6:30 p.m.
• Nov. 21: Loyola University Maryland (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Nov. 26: Tennessee Tech (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Dec. 2: North Carolina (Rupp Arena; ACC/SEC Challenge), 9:30 p.m.
• Dec. 5: vs. Gonzaga (Bridgestone Arena; Nashville), 7 p.m.
• Dec. 9: North Carolina Central (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Dec. 13: Indiana (Rupp Arena), 7:30 p.m.
• Dec. 20: vs. St. John’s (CBS Sports Classic; State Farm Arena, Atlanta), 12:30 p.m.
• Dec. 23: Bellarmine (Rupp Arena), 1 p.m.
• Jan. 3: at Alabama, 1 p.m.
• Jan. 7: Missouri (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Jan. 10: Mississippi State (Rupp Arena), 8:30 p.m.
• Jan. 14: at LSU, 7 p.m.
• Jan. 17: at Tennessee, Noon
• Jan. 21: Texas (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Jan. 24: Ole Miss (Rupp Arena), Noon
• Jan. 27: at Vanderbilt, 9 p.m.
• Jan. 31: at Arkansas, 6:30 p.m.
• Feb. 4: Oklahoma (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m.
• Feb. 7: Tennessee (Rupp Arena), 8:30 p.m.
• Feb. 14: at Florida, 3 p.m.
• Feb. 17: Georgia (Rupp Arena), 9 p.m.
• Feb. 21: at Auburn, 8:30 p.m.
• Feb. 24: at South Carolina, 7 p.m.
• Feb. 28: Vanderbilt (Rupp Arena), 2 p.m.
• March 3: at Texas A&M, 7 p.m.
• March 7: Florida (Rupp Arena), 4 p.m.

• Denzel Aberdeen (guard, senior)
• Collin Chandler (guard, sophomore)
• Mouhamed Dioubate (forward, junior)
• Brandon Garrison (forward, junior)
• Braydon Hawthorne (forward, freshman)
• Walker Horn (guard, senior)
• Andrija Jelavić (forward, sophomore)
• Jasper Johnson (guard, freshman)
• Jaland Lowe (guard, junior)
• Malachi Moreno (freshman, center)
• Trent Noah (forward, sophomore)
• Otega Oweh (guard, senior)
• Reece Potter (forward, junior)
• Jayden Quaintance (forward, sophomore)
• Zach Tow (forward, senior)
• Kam Williams (guard, sophomore)

Click here to view the Colonels’ complete schedule.

Want to learn the Colonels’ roster?

Click here for player bios and more.

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.