Kentucky needs a win over Gonzaga to avoid a historic mark of basketball futility

Following a 32-point victory in an overly friendly Memorial Gym on Tuesday night, Kentucky returns home this weekend to Rupp Arena, where the Wildcats will look to avoid a major mark of UK basketball futility with Gonzaga coming to town.

The Cats’ past two games in Rupp have not gone well. First, a 94-91 overtime loss to Florida. Then, a 103-92 defeat at the hands of Tennessee, who led by at least seven points for the final 17 minutes of the game last Saturday.

With those back-to-back beatings, this Kentucky team became just the sixth to lose consecutive games in Rupp Arena, which has been home to 48 seasons of UK basketball. No group of Wildcats has ever lost three straight games in the building.

Losing two in a row is rare enough.

Only one other team coached by John Calipari, who is now in his 15th season, has managed that, and it was the 2020-21 squad, a group of mostly freshmen who had limited preparation time due to the COVID-19 pandemic and never played in front of a true home crowd as a result of safety protocols during that season. Rupp Arena was capped at 3,075 fans for those games. UK lost back-to-back home games twice over the course of the season, which ended with a 9-16 record, Calipari’s worst at Kentucky.

Before that, the last UK team to lose two in a row in Rupp was the 2008-09 squad, which also dropped back-to-back games twice in that season, the last of two during the failed Billy Gillispie era.

Tubby Smith lost consecutive games in Rupp just once in 10 years as head coach. That two-game skid came during the 2005-06 season, when the Wildcats finished with a 22-13 record, the worst mark of the Smith era.

Rick Pitino lost consecutive home games early in his first season (1989-90), when the Wildcats were under probation due to NCAA sanctions left over from the previous staff and finished with a 14-14 record. Eddie Sutton lost two straight games in Rupp the season before (1988-89), when the Cats ended up with a 13-19 record.

And that’s it. As bad as most of those teams were — Smith’s 2005-06 group was the only one from that bunch to make the NCAA Tournament (as an 8 seed) — none lost three in a row at home.

Joe B. Hall coached nine seasons in the building and never suffered that disgrace. He lost two home games in a row just once in 13 years as head coach — the 1973-74 season, his worst with the Wildcats, who played in Memorial Coliseum at the time.

To find a Kentucky team that dropped three games in a row on its home court, you have to go all the way back to the 1966-67 season, when the Wildcats were coming off an appearance in the NCAA title game but had lost two of their key players — seniors Larry Conley and Tommy Kron — to graduation.

Coach Adolph Rupp specifically lamented the absence of Conley during the 1966-67 campaign, unable to find a suitable replacement for his versatility and dependability on the court. Kentucky started that season ranked No. 3 in the country, won its first home game — 104-84 over Virginia — and then proceeded to lose the next three in Memorial Coliseum, falling to Illinois (98-97 in OT), North Carolina (64-55) and Florida (78-75 on Dec. 17, 1966), an unthinkable occurrence on UK’s home court.

That skid came amid Rupp’s worst season, when the Cats finished 13-13 and didn’t make the postseason. It was also the first time Kentucky lost three games in a row on its home court since the Cats dropped four straight in Alumni Gym in 1927.

The 1966-67 Kentucky team — led by Louie Dampier and Pat Riley — could score. But they couldn’t stop others from doing the same, as the Lexington Leader’s Mike Clark wrote in the aftermath of the three-game home losing streak: “The Wildcats, who have proven themselves offensively, have fallen on their faces defensively.”

Sound familiar?

The current Kentucky team ranked No. 5 nationally in offensive efficiency after its 109-77 drubbing of Vanderbilt on Tuesday night, and the Cats lead the country with 89.7 points per game. They also go into the weekend at No. 101 nationally in defensive efficiency, the program’s worst mark in the history of the KenPom ratings, which date back to the 1996-97 season.

Gonzaga (17-6) comes in unranked but boasts one of the nation’s best offenses, which should provide another stiff test for Kentucky’s defense. KenPom is predicting a narrow 85-82 victory for the Wildcats.

UK has an 88.6% winning percentage all-time in Rupp Arena, and Calipari has gone 229-24 (90.5%) at home in his tenure as Kentucky’s head coach. Throw out that 2020-21 season when attendance was severely limited, and Calipari is 224-18 (92.6%) in Rupp Arena.

On Saturday, the Cats will need a win to avoid a historic losing skid.

Saturday

Gonzaga at No. 17 Kentucky

When: 4 p.m.

TV: CBS-27

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Gonzaga 17-6 (8-2 West Coast), Kentucky (16-6, 6-4 SEC)

Series: Tied 1-1

Last meeting: Gonzaga won 88-72 on Nov. 20, 2022, at Spokane Arena in Spokane, Washington

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