Stunning Stat Reveals How Long It Has Been Since Illinois Last Faced Kentucky

The Illini and Wildcats haven't met in more than 40 years – back when the game was played much differently

Kentucky defeats Troy 76-57 in the first round NCAA men’ s basketball tournament game on Friday March 21, 2025 at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis. / Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

When Illinois (22-12) and Kentucky (23-11) tip off on Sunday (4:15 p.m. CT, on CBS) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, it will be one day shy of exactly 41 years since the programs last met.

I was watching the Illini.

🆚 [3] Kentucky
🏆 NCAA Tournament
⏰ 4:15 p.m. CT
📍 Fiserv Forum
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/s3XExWkcFR

— Illinois Men's Basketball (@IlliniMBB) March 22, 2025

Not since March 24, 1984, when the Illini traveled to Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, for a regional final and the rights to a Final Four berth, have the teams taken the court together.

That game, which Kentucky ultimately won 54-51, took a dramatically different form than what should be expected when Brad Underwood's and Mark Pope’s clubs meet in Sunday’s present-day matchup.

Over the past four-plus decades, basketball has evolved in a number of ways – and no change has had a greater impact than the three-point shot.

Consider this: Back in that 1984 matchup, the Illini and Wildcats combined for zero threes.

The reason? It’s pretty simple, actually. Back then, the NCAA didn’t have a three-point shot.

For a bit of context, once college basketball added the three-point arc for the 1986-87 season, Kentucky and Illinois combined for 21.9 three-point attempts per game.

Compare that to this season, when each school has averaged more three-point attempts (30.1 from Illinois and 25.7 from Kentucky) than the programs totaled together back in the late '80s.

The real stunner, though, may be how well those teams of yesteryear shot the long ball. The '86-87 Wildcats (37.2 percent) nearly matched the clip of today’s UK squad (37.4 percent), while the old-school Illini (46.1 percent) blew away their modern counterparts (31.4 percent).

In fact, that '86-87 Illini percentage would rank first in the country today by more than six full percentage points. It would even rank in the top 100 in overall field goal percentage.

In any case, Sunday’s meetup between these two storied programs marks an opportunity for each to take another step in a potentially deep NCAA Tournament run and toward making another kind of lasting history.

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