Kentucky losing to Evansville is already college basketball’s upset of the year

The college basketball season is only one week old but we already have the upset of the year with Evansville beating No. 1 Kentucky.

It’s crazy how much things can change in a week. Last Tuesday night, Kentucky knocked off No. 1 Michigan State in the Champions Classic as Tyrese Maxey emerged as a star on the national stage. The Wildcats climbed to the top of the polls with that win and appeared set for a victory lap Tuesday night against Evansville, but no one told the Aces. In what was a truly dramatic effort, Evansville walked into Rupp Arena and beat the nation’s top team by three for college basketball’s early upset of the year.

Evansville’s win at Kentucky is the first time an unranked mid-major beat the No. 1 team on the road since Long Beach State beat Kansas in 1993.

A look at the box score wouldn’t lead you to believe this was a game that Kentucky lost. The two teams had nearly identical field goal percentages, and the Aces only grabbed three more rebounds than the Wildcats while committing only one more turnover.

The fact that Evansville knocked down five more threes than Kentucky helped, with the Aces going 9-30 from beyond the arc while the Wildcats hit just four of their 17 3-point attempts. Maxey, who came off the bench in Kentucky’s win over Michigan State last week, did the same tonight and recorded just 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting.

This was, in essence, an effort where Evansville went toe-to-toe with the No. 1 team in the land and emerged with a win. If these two teams played 99 more times, Kentucky might well win all 99, especially since the Aces weren’t exactly held in high regard entering the season.

Evansville was picked to finish eighth in the 10-team Missouri Valley Conference, so it’s not like anyone in their own league expected the Aces to do much. Certainly, no one had them beating Kentucky in their building. This kind of a win is a statement for a program like Evansville, which has put itself on the map as a potential tournament threat down the road.

This effort also raises serious questions for Kentucky, which played down to their competition at home and blew a very winnable game. People tend to forget that the Wildcats are a freshmen-laden team, and freshmen tend to have poor performances from time to time, but Kentucky cannot lose this kind of game.

This contest against Evansville is the epitome of a buy game when big schools pay smaller ones a sum of money to come play in their building and presumably lose. Kentucky paid Evansville $90,000 for them to come to the Rupp Arena and beat the No. 1 team in the nation. The Aces flipped the script and pulled off the upset, which will be a bitter pill for John Calipari to swallow going forward.

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