First Scouting Report: Will Kentucky reassert its rivalry hold over Louisville?

An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:

The opponent

No. 21 Kentucky (8-2, 0-0 SEC) will face intrastate rival Louisville (7-4, 1-0 ACC) on Wednesday, Dec. 22, at Rupp Arena (capacity 20,545).

The game will tip off at 6 p.m. (EST) and be telecast by ESPN.

Coach Chris Mack’s Cardinals lost 82-72 at Western Kentucky on Saturday.

Series history

Kentucky leads the all-time series with Louisville 37-17. In the John Calipari coaching era (since 2009-10), the Wildcats are 11-3 vs. the Cardinals.

Most recent meeting

Louisville guards Carlik Jones (20) and David Johnson (17) combined for 37 points as the Cardinals gave Chris Mack his first victory over Kentucky with a 62-59 win in the KFC Yum Center on Dec. 26, 2020.

Power rankings

Through Friday’s games, the NCAA’s NET Rankings had Kentucky No. 51 and Louisville No. 64.

The Kenpom Rankings rated UK No. 21 and U of L No. 43.

Kentucky stood No. 25 in the Sagarin Ratings with Louisville No. 41.

Know your foe

1. Offensive balance has been the story for Louisville so far in 2021-22. Going into Saturday’s game at WKU, U of L had eight players averaging between 5.9 and 10.9 points a game.

Veteran big man Malik Williams has been the Cardinals’ top player, leading U of L in both scoring (10.9 ppg) and rebounding (9.7 rpg) while shooting 52.5 percent from the field.

Williams, however, did not play in Saturday’s contest at Western Kentucky due to COVID-19 protocols. His status for Wednesday night is unclear.

2. Louisville guard Noah Locke (9.6 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 31.2% field goals, 31.1% three-point tries) has recent memory of playing in a victory over UK in Rupp Arena.

Last season, the 6-foot-3, 205-pound product of Baltimore had six points for Florida in the Gators’ 71-67 victory over Kentucky in Lexington on Feb. 27.

In three seasons playing for Florida, Locke averaged 10.1 points and hit 40.3 percent of his three-point tries.

He has not been especially effective against UK in his career, however.

Over Locke’s six prior games vs. the Cats, he has averaged 6 ppg and has scored in double figures only once — 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting in UK’s 71-70 comeback victory at Florida in the 2019-20 regular-season finale.

Locke had a team-high 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting, 4-of-13 treys, in Saturday’s loss to WKU.

3. Chris Mack is 1-2 as Louisville head man vs. Kentucky, but came agonizingly close to beating UK in Rupp in 2019-20.

The Cardinals rallied from eight down at halftime to force overtime, only to see UK prevail 78-70 behind 27 points from Tyrese Maxey, 18 from Immanuel Quickley and a double-double (13 points, 10 rebounds) from Nick Richards.

In his previous coaching stop at Xavier, Mack was an effective “rivalry coach,” going 6-3 against crosstown rival Cincinnati.

On Wednesday, Mack will be trying to lead U of L its first win over UK in Rupp Arena since Rick Pitino’s Cards throttled Billy Gillispie’s Cats 89-75 on Jan. 5, 2008.

Louisville has subsequently lost its last six games vs. Kentucky in Lexington.