Kentucky basketball sets monster home and home with Gonzaga starting this season

Kentucky basketball will play a marquee home and home series with the Gonzaga Bulldogs beginning this November in Spokane.

A Kentucky vs. Gonzaga matchup isn’t just reserved for the NCAA Tournament anymore.

This year, the two college basketball powerhouses will play the first in a home-and-home series in Washington this November. The series will head to Lexington in 2023.

Considering what a big series this will be, it deserved a big announcement and it got one from UK head coach John Calipari and Zags head coach Mark Few.

Kentucky basketball sets monster home and home with Gonzaga

That’s one way to reveal two huge brands are going to be facing off in the regular season.

This will be just the second time the Wildcats and Bulldogs will meet. They faced off in 2002 at the Maui Invitational. Kentucky won 80-72 over Few’s Zags. It was before Calipari’s time.

It won’t be the first time Calipari and Few have met though. They played four times while Calipari was at Memphis, with the Tigers holding a 4-0 edge.

This matchup should be a fun one.

While Kentucky was embarrassed in the first round of the tournament by Saint Peter’s, the Wildcats return a team with serious star power headlined by Oscar Tshiebwe.

Few lost big man Chet Holmgren but he’s got Drew Timme and other stalwarts returning. His program remains a strength in the west and will remain a favorite to challenge for a title.

The one uncertainty at this point is where the game will be played in November. The Kennel, Gonzaga’s on-campus home, only has a capacity of 6,000. A matchup of this magnitude could call for a shift of venue to the Spokane Arena, which seats 12,000. Jeff Goodman of Stadium tweeted that the larger arena was likely to host.