KSR Gameday: A New Year's Eve Matinee vs. Brown

After ten days off, the Kentucky Men’s Basketball team is finally back in action. After a few days off myself, I’m back too and can’t wait to cover it all as the Cats take on the Brown Bears from the Ivy League in a New Year’s Eve matinee (2 p.m. ET, ESPNU).

The Ohio State loss left a bad taste in the Cats’ mouths heading into the long holiday break. Today, they’ll finally get to rinse it out vs. Brown, which is 7-4 this season and coming off a 34-point loss to Kansas on Dec. 22. Prior to that game, the Bears had won six straight. Senior Kino Lilly Jr., whom Mark Pope described as the “Ivy League Iverson,” leads Brown in scoring with 20.0 points per game, including 42.7% shooting from the outside, and 3.6 assists per contest. This will be the first-ever meeting between Kentucky and Brown, which was picked to finish third in the Ivy League behind Princeton and Yale.

The schedule always feels all out of sorts this time of year, but New Year’s Eve games aren’t totally outside of the norm. According to Corey Price, this is the ninth time since the 1989-90 season that the Cats have played on New Year’s Eve. Kentucky did it five times in the Calipari Era, most recently in 2022 vs. Louisville.

After an ugly showing in New York vs. the Buckeyes, I’m all for ending 2024 on a high note, especially with a daunting SEC schedule ahead, starting with Saturday’s clash vs. No. 6 Florida.

How to Watch, Listen

With the early tip, the KSR Pregame Show will start during the KSR morning show at 11:30 a.m. That means you’ll have KSR live on your radio from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. From there, Buzz Baker and Cameron Mills will take over on Countdown to Tipoff, handing it over to Tom Leach and Goose Givens for Kentucky vs. Brown at 2 p.m. ET.

• Time: 2 p.m. ET
• Television: ESPNU (Kevin Fitzgerald, Carolyn Peck)
• Home Radio: UK Sports Network – 630 WLAP, iHeart Radio (Tom Leach, Goose Givens)
• Online Radio: iHeart
• Satellite Radio: Sirius 201 or 210
• Live Stats: StatBroadcast

You can also follow the game via our new LIVE BLOG on the website, which will begin an hour before tipoff, or join the conversation on KSBoard.

Odds

Kentucky opened as a 22.5-point favorite over Brown. That’s now up to Kentucky -23.5 and a total of 155.5 points. KenPom has the Cats winning by a slightly closer margin, 86-67, while ESPN’s BPI likes Kentucky by 20.7 points.

The Cats have been pretty bad against the spread lately, covering it just once in the past seven games. Hopefully, they can get back on track today in a multitude of ways.

Jaxson Robinson is on 1,000-point watch

So far this season, two Wildcats have reached the 1,000-point mark of their college careers. Kerr Kriisa crossed the threshold vs. Gonzaga, while Koby Brea did it the next game out vs. Colgate. In total, six Kentucky players are part of the 1,000-point club: Kriisa, Brea, Ansley Almonor, Lamont Butler, Amari Williams, and Andrew Carr. Today, Jaxson Robinson could join them. Robinson needs just 18 points to reach the milestone.

Robinson, Butler preview Brown

On Monday, Robinson and Butler met with the media to give an update on what the team’s been working on during the break and preview today’s matchup with Brown. Robinson said ball-screen defense has been priority number one for the Cats since the loss to the Buckeyes. Number two? Shooting more threes. Avoiding slow starts would be nice, too.

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Quick-hitters from the Mark Pope Show

On Monday evening, Pope sat down for his weekly chat with Tom Leach. With no games taking place, there wasn’t a lot of new ground covered, but there were some nuggets worth passing along as we get ready for tipoff.

Injury Updates: I doubt anyone anticipated Kerr Kriisa to play this week, but Pope confirmed that the fifth-year guard remains out as he recovers from foot fracture surgery. Pope said Brandon Garrison is also not 100% healthy, which is something to watch. “It’s nothing serious, but he’s just dealing with a few things we’re trying to monitor.”

Denim will make a comeback — one day: Since Pope became coach, fans have been clamoring for the program to bring back the denim jerseys the team wore during the 1995-96 season. When asked, Pope said there’s a lot of red tape, but the staff is “pretty passionate” about bringing the denim unis back in some form or fashion.

“Not quite done” with the 2025 class: Pope raved about his current 2025 class of Jasper Johnson, Malachi Moreno, and Acaden Lewis, but hinted that it might not be complete. Five-star power forward Caleb Wilson is set to announce his college decision in January. Come on down.

For more from Pope, I’ll direct you to Jack Pilgrim’s recap of the show.

TV Schedule for a Big Sports Day

Kentucky vs. Brown is just one part of a jam-packed New Year’s Eve sports schedule. In addition to some ranked college basketball games, we’ve got five bowls, including the first College Football Playoff Quarterfinal, No. 6 Penn State vs. No. 3 Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl tonight. The remaining three quarterfinal games take place tomorrow.

College Football

12:00 PM	No. 11 Alabama	Michigan	ESPN	ReliaQuest Bowl
2:00 PM	Louisville	Washington	CBS	Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl
3:00 PM	No. 15 South Carolina	No. 20 Illinois	ABC	Cheez-It Citrus Bowl
3:30 PM	Baylor	LSU	ESPN	Kinder’s Texas Bowl
7:30 PM	No. 6 Penn State	No. 3 Boise Stae	ESPN	CFP Quarterfinal at the VRBO Fiesta Bowl

College Basketball

2:00 PM	Brown	No. 10 Kentucky	ESPNU
2:00 PM	West Virginia	No. 7 Kansas	ESPN+
2:00 PM	Utah	No. 25 Baylor	ESPN+
3:00 PM	Norfolk State	No. 1 Tennessee	SECN+/ESPN+
4:30 PM	Virginia Tech	No. 4 Duke	ACC Network
6:00 PM	No. 8 Marquette	Providence	FS1