Kentucky basketball adds game to 2023-24 schedule. It’s an intriguing matchup for one Cat.
The Kentucky men’s basketball team has added another game to its 2023-24 schedule.
And it will be a reunion of sorts for one prominent Wildcat.
UK will host Illinois State in Rupp Arena on Dec. 29, the Redbirds confirmed with the release of their non-conference schedule Thursday. Kentucky’s leading returning scorer from last season’s team, Antonio Reeves, played the first three years of his college basketball career at Illinois State before joining the Wildcats as a transfer last offseason.
Reeves also enrolled in classes at Illinois State this offseason as he pursued the completion of his undergraduate degree, though he also remained a UK student during that time and confirmed in June that he would return to the Cats for one more season.
Illinois State went 11-21 with a 6-14 record in the Missouri Valley Conference during the 2022-23 season, the program’s first under new head coach Ryan Pedon.
“I think it’s going to be a great experience for our team and our players playing a blue blood, going somewhere playing in front of 19 or 20 thousand fans would be great,” Pedon told The Pantagraph on Thursday. “Just the experience for them being on that stage, that can be really valuable regardless of outcome.”
Pedon, 45, was most recently an assistant coach under Chris Holtmann — first for two seasons at Butler, then for five seasons at Ohio State — before taking over the Redbirds last year, his first head coaching job.
The early Torvik ratings have Illinois State at No. 228 nationally for the 2023-24 season, placing the Redbirds 10th in the 12-team MVC. They finished ninth in the league last season.
Illinois State is slated to return four of its top five scorers from last season, including senior guard Darius Buford, who led the Redbirds with 12.9 points and 2.5 assists per game last season. Reeves led the team in scoring with 20.1 points per game the previous season.
Reeves averaged 14.4 points per game — second only to Oscar Tshiebwe — for the Wildcats’ last season, and he also hit 39.8 percent of his three-point shots. Reeves and West Virginia transfer Tre Mitchell are the only scholarship upperclassmen on Kentucky’s 2023-24 roster, which will be heavily reliant on freshmen.
The only other matchups with confirmed dates on Kentucky’s schedule are Kansas (Nov. 14 in Chicago), Saint Joseph’s (Nov. 20 in Lexington) and Miami (Nov. 28 in Lexington), though UK will also play home games against Gonzaga, Stonehill College and Texas A&M-Commerce, a road game at Louisville, and the 18-game Southeastern Conference schedule.
Several other non-conference games — including a CBS Sports Classic matchup with either North Carolina, Ohio State or UCLA — will be made official at a later date.
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