Kentucky’s season stays at full speed Friday night, when the No. 23 Cats host James Madison at Rupp Arena at 7 p.m. ET. The game comes three days after Kentucky opened with an 85-57 win over Manhattan, and it puts Mark Pope on the same sideline conversation that has followed Preston Spradlin for years.
Pope did not hide how he feels about Spradlin, calling him one of the great human beings in the coaching profession, a heck of a coach and a better person. He said the two have had really, really long basketball-based and spiritually based conversations over the last few years, and he said he is excited to have him back in the gym. It is the kind of praise that lands differently when the next game is already on the board.
Kentucky made a clean early statement in its opener. Milan Momcilovic scored 24 points and hit six of nine shots from behind the arc. Zoom Diallo added 12 points, Alex Wilkins scored 11, and Wilkins also finished with seven steals and five assists. As a team, Kentucky made 32 of 60 shots from the floor and shot 53.3 percent overall, while also going 12 of 31 from three-point range.
James Madison arrives with a more uneven first result. The Dukes lost 86-77 to Miami (Ohio) in their opener after leading at halftime, then watching the game turn when Miami (Ohio) scored 51 points in the second half. Paul Jones III had 14 points in that loss, but the collapse after the break left Spradlin’s team searching for the full 40-minute performance it did not get the first time out.
That is what makes Friday interesting. Kentucky is not just playing another early-season home game; it is facing a coach with UK ties, a coach Pope clearly respects, and a team that has already shown it can build an early lead and still let the game slip away. For Spradlin, the return to a Kentucky game environment comes with the chance to see whether James Madison can turn a good opening half into a result that lasts.
