The 15th-ranked Kansas men’s basketball team will face its first significant test of the 2026-27 season and meet another of the nation’s most distinguished programs when it takes on No. 24 Kentucky on the Champions Classic on Tuesday night.
Tipoff is set for 8:30 p.m. — to follow the event’s opening match between Duke and Michigan State — on ESPN. The game will take place at the United Center in Chicago, which was also the site of the last KU-UK battle, an 89-84 victory for the Jayhawks on Nov. 14, 2023, in which Hunter Dickinson racked up 27 points and 21 rebounds and Kevin McCullar Jr. recorded one of precious few triple-doubles in program history (he then got another the next time he took the court).
That was before longtime Kentucky head coach John Calipari made the move to Arkansas. Since then, the Wildcats have been led by Mark Pope, who during that same 2023-24 season had led BYU to an upset win at Allen Fieldhouse. Kentucky has not ranked at the top of the SEC in recent years, finishing seventh in each of Pope’s two seasons. It escaped Santa Clara in an overtime thriller in the first round of last year’s NCAA Tournament before losing to Iowa State in the second.
The Wildcats have a new look this year, with a variety of transfers joining returning 7-footer Malachi Moreno, an SEC all-freshman selection last season. The backcourt comprises guards Zoom Diallo (15.7 points and 4.5 assists per game at Washington) and Alex Wilkins (17.8 points and 4.7 assists at Furman), but the most familiar name is Milan Momcilovic, a deadly shooter who faced KU on numerous occasions during his three-year tenure at Iowa State and hit 48.7% of his 3s last season.
“We got to guard him,” KU coach Bill Self said. “He’s arguably the best shooter in the country. He’s got a quick trigger.”
Kentucky has been playing big with another 7-footer, Ousmane N’Diaye, starting alongside Moreno, but has also given a lot of minutes to young guards Braydon Hawthorne and Mason Williams in its two games — victories over Manhattan and James Madison.
The JMU game on Friday was an anxious one for Big Blue Nation. The Dukes, who went 15-for-45 beyond the arc on the night, had the game tied at halftime at Rupp Arena and led with 14 minutes remaining before conceding an 11-0 run, at which point they had to play from behind for the rest of what became an 89-80 loss. Diallo and Wilkins supplied 16 points each for Kentucky, and forward Justin McBride, a JMU transfer, had 13 points and eight boards off the bench.
“(It) probably went exactly as Mark wanted it to go, because they were very competitive and then they pulled away down the stretch by making some plays, at least from what I’ve seen,” Self said. “We’re going to play a good team. Two winningest programs of all time hooking up and playing in a neutral-site venue that’ll I’m sure be turned up, it should be a lot of fun.”
Kentucky leads the all-time series against KU 24-12, but the Jayhawks have won six of the last eight matchups.
NO. 15 KANSAS JAYHAWKS (2-0) VS. NO. 24 KENTUCKY WILDCATS (2-0)
• United Center, Chicago, 8:30 p.m.
• Broadcast: ESPN
• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9 / KMXN FM 92.9)
KEEP AN EYE OUT
Tough break: The loss of KU guard Melvin Council Jr. to a broken foot, which is expected to keep him out until around the start of Big 12 Conference play at the new year, is a significant disruption to a team that was only just starting to figure out how to incorporate him in the first place, after he rejoined the Jayhawks in early October. Most of KU’s exhibition play and its first couple regular-season games suggested that Council would be more of a peripheral piece this season as opposed to the focal point he was last year, but even so, the Jayhawks’ backcourt has quite a different look without him, and Self will need to fall back on the small-guard pairing of freshman Taylen Kinney and sophomore Toledo transfer Leroy Blyden Jr. that had looked set to start for the Jayhawks for most of the offseason. Given that both are still adjusting to high-level collegiate competition, dealing with the veterans Diallo and Wilkins will be a challenge.
Lineup length: Of course, KU doesn’t necessarily have to default to Blyden and Kinney as its starters and its most frequent backcourt. These might be longer-term considerations given that KU hasn’t had much time to consider new paths since Council got hurt on Monday, but what about pairing Trey Kaufman-Renn with Christian Reeves in the frontcourt? Kaufman-Renn did apparently tell Reeves when he arrived that he has a history of making big men better when he plays alongside them, but Self said prior to the Middle Tennessee game that the Jayhawks hadn’t practiced this sort of arrangement much. Now might be the time as KU gears up to face two 7-footers. Tyran Stokes, at 6-foot-8, might not be a natural shooting guard, but he can bring up the ball well if the Jayhawks wanted to go with him and Tre White alongside Kinney. The other non-Blyden option, if KU wanted to add at least some size in the frontcourt, would be to leave Kaufman-Renn at center but pair him with fellow 6-foot-9 forward Keanu Dawes.
Finding his place: Dawes is one of the more intriguing players on the roster at this point. He has spoken of trying to unlock a new level of defensive intensity that he hasn’t accessed to this point in his career, and if he can do that, he can certainly provide a great level of versatility on that end of the floor. On the offensive end, he possesses an intimidating combination of athleticism and outside shooting ability. And throughout the game he might be KU’s best rebounder. But as Self has said, KU is still trying to figure out his exact right role. The Jayhawks’ first test against power-conference competition could be an important step in that journey.
OFF-KILTER OBSERVATION
Stokes’ final collegiate decision came down to Kansas, Kentucky and Oregon.
