Formidable non-league schedule will test revamped Kentucky
The departure of seven key players from last year's 38-win juggernaut didn't cause John Calipari to scale back his non-conference schedule for next season.
The Kentucky coach has assembled a non-league slate loaded with marquee games against name-brand opponents.
A Champions Classic matchup against reigning national champion Duke will provide the first test of how good next year's Wildcats will be. The Blue Devils lost four starters from their title team, but they'll reload behind returning standouts Matt Jones and Grayson Allen and the nation's most decorated recruiting class.
Among the challenging games Kentucky will play in December include a visit to UCLA, a neutral-court matchup with Ohio State in Brooklyn and a home game against rival Louisville. The Bruins should be highly motivated after the Wildcats embarrassed them in an 83-44 rout last December and the Cardinals should again have a Top 25 caliber team despite the loss of stars Montrezl Harrell and Terry Rozier.
Perhaps the most challenging non-league game of all for Kentucky will come Jan. 30 at Kansas as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge. The likely preseason top-five Jayhawks return much of their perimeter talent from last year's Big 12 championship team and bolster their frontcourt with the arrival of top recruits Cheick Diallo and Carlton Bragg.
"Putting a schedule together, especially one like this, is fun," Calipari said in a school-released statement. "Having to play those games is a different story. To understate it, this will obviously be a challenging schedule for a young team like ours, which lost more than 85 percent of its scoring and nearly 80 percent of its rebounding. We're excited for the challenge."
Kentucky indeed will enter next season with more questions than usual thanks to an uncharacteristic string of recruiting misses this spring. Elite prospects Ivan Rabb, Malik Newman, Cheick Diallo, Brandon Ingram, Jaylen Brown and Stephen Zimmerman all turned down offers from the Wildcats, leaving them with far less depth than they had last season.
Opening the season in the top five is still a possibility for Kentucky thanks to the return of standout point guard Tyler Ulis, breakout candidate Marcus Lee and a now healthy Alex Poythress. They'll join a recruiting that class that will definitely include Rivals No. 1 overall prospect Skal Labissiere, wing Charles Matthews and high-scoring combo guard Isaiah Briscoe.
There's also still a chance Kentucky could add highly touted Canadian point guard Jamal Murray if he opts to sign with the Wildcats and reclassify from the Class of 2016. That would certainly help Kentucky navigate a schedule that should again be one of the nation's toughest.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
