Kentucky’s meeting with Kansas in the Champions Classic now has a start time, and it’s the kind that asks fans to settle in for the long haul.
The Wildcats and Jayhawks will tip at 9:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at the United Center in Chicago, with ESPN carrying the game.
As usual with this event, the second matchup of the night comes with a late finish attached. Duke and Michigan State are set to open the doubleheader at 7:00 p.m.
ET on ESPN.
Tickets are already on sale through Ticketmaster, with presale access available using the code WILDCATS.
The game carries plenty of weight on the calendar, even before the ball goes up. ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 Rankings have Kentucky at No. 19 and Kansas at No.
- It will also be the first major regular-season test in year three of the Mark Pope era, which means Big Blue Nation will be paying close attention.
There’s no shortage of extra layers, either. Kansas coach Bill Self nearly retired in the offseason before deciding to return, and the Jayhawks later landed Tyran Stokes, the top-ranked high school prospect, who was heavily pursued by Kentucky. Kansas also added freshman guard Tay Kinney, a highly ranked recruit from northern Kentucky who chose the Jayhawks over UK.
That’s a lot of storylines packed into one game, and it lands on a night that figures to run long in Chicago.
Kentucky’s 2026-27 schedule is already taking shape around it, beginning with Big Blue Madness on Oct. 2 at Rupp Arena and including exhibitions against Little Rock, Texas Tech and Central Florida later in the month. The Wildcats open the regular season at home against Manhattan on Nov. 3 before facing James Madison and then Kansas in the Champions Classic.
The nonconference slate also includes Northern Arizona, Grambling State, Indiana at Lucas Oil Stadium, Wichita State, Virginia in the SEC/ACC Challenge, Appalachian State, Bryant, Louisville, North Carolina at Madison Square Garden, Sacred Heart and Gardner-Webb.
SEC play brings a full run of road tests and heavyweight home dates, including trips to Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi State, Texas, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, plus home games against Ole Miss, LSU, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, Auburn and Texas A&M.
In Other News...
Kentuckys New-Look Roster Just Got A Big National Endorsement
CBS Sports writer Isaac Trotters latest positional rankings offered an early sign of how much attention Kentuckys revamped roster is already drawing. Four Wildcats showed up in his breakdown of top college basketball players by role, a notable nod for a team that is still sorting out its identity but clearly has pieces that national observers believe can matter right away.
Zoom Diallo was slotted as an initiator point guard expected to start and run the offense, while Alex Wilkins was tagged as a combo guard and Milan Momcilovic earned the label of the No. 1 off-ball wing. Malachi Moreno rounded out the group as a true 5, giving Kentucky a mix of backcourt creation, perimeter scoring and interior size that should make the coming season worth tracking closely even before the rotation is fully settled. [Read more 🡒]
Kentucky Landed A Shooter Whose National Respect Still Makes No Sense
Milan Momcilovic arrives in Lexington with the sort of shooting profile Kentucky fans immediately notice, the kind that changes the geometry of a floor before the ball even gets swung his way. He hit 48.7 percent from three and buried 136 triples in the 2025-26 season, both eye-opening numbers that helped make him the No. 3 overall player in the transfer portal and bring an NIL valuation of $6 million with him into Kentuckys orbit.
Even with that resume, national respect for Momcilovic has not exactly matched the production, which only adds another layer to why this addition matters for the Wildcats. He is also chasing a place in Kentuckys record book, and if his touch translates the way it has elsewhere, the conversation around him in Lexington could move quickly from whether he fits to how high he can climb before the season is over. [Read more 🡒]
Kentucky Faces A Turnover Test It Hasn't Seen Yet
South Alabama has come out of the gate cleanly, with its offense protecting the ball through three games while the defense has helped the Jaguars build one of the better turnover margins in the country. For Kentucky, that makes this matchup a little more interesting than the average nonconference date. The Wildcats have leaned on a defense and special teams group that has already created problems for opponents, and that edge could matter again if the game starts turning on hidden yards and short fields.
Kentucky, though, also knows it has spent too much time chasing the ball and not enough time controlling it. The Wildcats have been on the wrong side of the possession battle in each of their first three games, which adds another layer to a contest that figures to be shaped by who gets extra opportunities and who protects the football best. If South Alabama keeps playing the way it has, this becomes less about style points and more about whether Kentucky can force a game into the kind of turnover fight it wants. [Read more 🡒]