The Kentucky Wildcats have a tough non-conference schedule, but the toughest game on this schedule is when Mark Pope’s team takes on the Duke Blue Devils. On Tuesday, November 12th, the Wildcats will take on Duke in Atlanta as a part of the State Farm Champions Classic.
This game will be Kentucky’s opportunity to prove to the world what they have on the big stage as two Blue Bloods faceoff.
It won’t be your usual Kentucky vs. Duke matchup as John Calipari is gone, and Coach Pope has a different type of roster. Coach Pope doesn’t have a five-star talent, but he has a veteran players who have played a lot of college basketball.
Duke, on the other hand, does have five-star talent, and they have a lot of it on this 2024-25 roster. The headline of Duke’s roster is five-star freshman Cooper Flagg, who was the class of 2024’s #1 overall player. Flagg was recently playing against Team USA as they got ready for the Olympics so he has played against the best basketball players in the world. What is crazy is that he held his own against the likes of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Steph Curry. Flagg is the surefire #1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and he will be tough for Kentucky to stop.
It will be really interesting to see how Coach Pope plans to guard the 6’9 Flagg. He is a guard/forward who can dribble, shoot, and literally everything else on the floor. It would make sense to have either Otega Oweh or Andrew Carr guard Flagg. There is no perfect fit on this roster to guard Flagg, but those two would have the best shot.
Oweh is shorter than Flagg, but he is athletic and strong, while Carr is taller but would likely give up a step foot speed-wise. Kentucky needs to start planning now about how to guard the nation’s best freshman.
