Kentucky had a historic defensive performance against Nicholls on Tuesday

Kentucky had their best performance on defense in Rupp Arena in over a decade.

Nov 4, 2025; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats forward Mouhamed Dioubate (23) reacts after making a basket during the first half against the Nicholls Colonels at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

The Kentucky Wildcats kicked off their 2025-26 season against Nicholls on Tuesday in Rupp Arena, where they got off to a slow start offensively, but it was their defense that made a good impression, not just in the first half but through the entire game. Kentucky held the Colonels to just 30 percent overall on the night and 17% from three on 4-24 shooting.

In the first half, Kentucky's defense was even more elite, as Nicholls scored just 15 points, shooting 3-25 from the field in the first half and just 1-14 from deep. It was incredible performance on that end, and so much so that Nicholls' 15 first half points was the lowest Kentucky has allowed since 2019 and the lowest in Rupp Arena since 2014. Mark Pope spoke after the game about Kentucky's defense, specifically against the ball-screens, switching and communicating.

"It's really important. It's going to determine how good we are this year," Pope said. "Jalin Rice kind of got a little bit of action in second half, and so we switched up the matchup, put Otega on him, and then just blitz every ball screen, and so it was just an out-of-timeout adjustment, and our guys were actually able to execute it twice. The first time ended up being a turnover out of bounds. The second time was an unbelievable blitz late by (Andrija Jelavic). So, I like the fact that our guys are far enough advanced right now that we can just make simple adjustments like that in the game, and you can actually go execute them pretty well. And it's going to be important for us to be able to do that this season."

Mark Pope knows how much pride his team takes on the defensive side, as they have been talking about how special they can be on that end of the floor all off-season, but he sees the vision into what they're building defensively. "If we could ever get to a point where, like, we're getting a stop every single time down the floor, that would be actually a really fun team to coach. And this team, I don't know if we can. I don't know if we're building exactly that way, but we might be to build close."

Kentucky has a lot of special abilities on defense, and once their offense was able to find a flow against Nicholls after a rough first half on that end, that's when the Wildcats really started to pull away.