Daniel Orton News

With the win Kentucky improves to 8-0, and with the loss, North Carolina falls to 7-2. Off to an 8-0 start, UK has jumped out to the best start to a season since the 1992-93 campaign when UK opened 11-0. UK owns an 11-21 all-time record against North Carolina with a 6-6 mark against the Tar Heels in Lexington.

The two winningest programs in college basketball history square off Saturday as the Tar Heels take on No.

To be a Kentucky Wildcat basketball fan this year we'll have to display several important virtues.

Kentucky Coach John Calipari would like to expand the program's annual game in Louisville to a separate ticket package of games in the state's largest city.

Kentucky overpowered Cleveland State 73-49 in the Cancun Challenge semifinals on Tuesday.

John Calipari is far from satisfied with his team's defense, but Kentucky 's first-year coach saw progress in the Wildcats' last game.

The fourth-ranked Kentucky Wildcats leave the friendly confines of Rupp Arena for the first time this season, as they travel to Mexico for this afternoon's showdown with the Cleveland State Vikings as part of the Cancun Challenge.

The gesture was a simple one, a nod of respect from one teammate to another. It meant a whole lot more than that to Kentucky coach John Calipari.

With the win, No. 4 Kentucky improves to 4-0 and with the loss, Rider drops to 2-2. UK's 4-0 start to the season marks the best start in five years dating back to the 2004-05 season, where Tubby Smith's team opened 4-0, before going 19-2 in its first 21 games.

Freshman John Wall scored 21 points, dished out 11 assists and grabbed six rebounds to help fourth-ranked Kentucky cruise to a 92-63 win over Rider at Rupp Arena.

The Kentucky Wildcats' first two games may not have yielded the overwhelming victories Big Blue fans anticipated.

Standing in the huddle on Monday night with No. 4 Kentucky trailing red-hot Miami by 18, the sophomore forward kept waiting for his coach to drop the player-friendly approach and start testing the physical limits of his clipboard.

A few teams have gotten a head start on the action, but for most of the country, this weekend marks the official beginning of the new season.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - John Wall's debut for the University of Kentucky basketball team will have to wait, but coach John Calipari's went off mostly without a hitch.

Kentucky freshman Eric Bledsoe scored 24 points while starting in place of John Wall, and the fourth-ranked Wildcats opened the John Calipari era with a 75-59 win over Morehead State on Friday night.

SF) Steffphon Pettigrew, Western Kentucky: The Elizabethtown product, a 6-5 junior, is proving wrong doubters who thought he was too short to make it as a college forward.

LEXINGTON - John Calipari knows exactly how he wants University of Kentucky basketball to feel, because he has felt it himself.

Fans are hoping this year's Wildcats can develop the kind of chemistry that defined UK's 1996 national champions.

When freshman John Wall went to the bench with 4:21 left, the Rupp Arena crowd rose and applauded in appreciation.

Nineteen months after meeting in the 2008 national championship game, Bill Self and John Calipari again are in a class by themselves: Both have assembled teams whose talent surplus is dwarfed only by the oversize expectations of their fans.

All across the country there is the usual fan excitement that accompanies the start of the college basketball season. Then there is the level of fervor raging these days at Kansas and Kentucky, where fan bases of two storied programs are expecting nothing short of near perfection.