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John Calipari’s Wildcats will play Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt twice next season


By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today

The Southeastern Conference released its league basketball schedule on Wednesday and the Wildcats will play Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt twice during the regular season.

Coach John Calipari guides the Wildcats in the SEC quarterfinals against Vanderbilt. (Photo by Jeff Houchens)

Kentucky will also host Auburn, LSU, South Carolina and Texas A&M at Rupp Arena. Road games are at Mississippi State, Missouri, Alabama, and Ole Miss. Arkansas is the reigning SEC regular-season champion and the Razorbacks have won two straight in the series. Kentucky owns a 33-13 record against Arkansas.

It will mark the first time the two league foes have played each other twice since the 213-14 season. The Wildcats also will play Georgia twice in the same season and are 20-3 against the Bulldogs under John Calipari.

The Wildcats have won 13 in a row over the Commodores and 23-4 in games played in Calipari’s tenure as coach of the Wildcats. Kentucky and Tennessee have split their two regular-season games during the past four seasons.

Kentucky returns a nucleus of last year’s squad, including National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe, Sahvir Wheeler, Jacob Toppin, Damion Collins and Lance Ware. The Wildcats finished 26-8 a year ago and return 44 percent of its scoring from last year.

Kentucky will play four games in the Bahamas in August, giving the team a head start on the regular season.

Keith Taylor is the sports editor for Kentucky Today. Reach him at keith.taylor@kentuckytoday.com and via Twitter at keithtaylor21.


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