Kelsey was hired in late March with an even taller task of lifting Louisville from two historically bad seasons under former Cardinals player Kenny Payne, who previously spent 10 years as Calipari’s assistant. (Payne has reunited with Calipari at Arkansas.)

The Kentucky Wildcats were able to take down the Louisville Cardinals in the first matchup of the Mark Pope vs. Pat Kelsey era. Despite nearly leading wire-to-wire, Kentucky had to battle for 40 minutes to pull out the victory,

The new UK-U of L coaching matchup yielded a very familiar result. Kentucky has now beaten Louisville in 10 of the past 12 meetings and 17 of the last 22. UK leads all-time series with U of L 40-17, and the modern series (since 1982-83) 31-14.