Indeed, we’ve got action. Kentucky Basketball will be hosting the Texas Tech Red Raiders in an exhibition game on Friday, October 23rd at Rupp Arena.
This will be a game between two teams coming off similar seasons in 2025-26, with both of them losing in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.
Now, we all know we can’t really take away too much from exhibition games. Remember when Kentucky beat top-ranked Purdue last year? National championship expectations were taking shape.
Then, Kentucky lost at
home to Georgetown less than a week later. Concern set in, and rightfully so.
Texas Tech is a quality opponent. The Red Raiders went 23-11 overall last year and 12-6 in the Big 12. They return one of the best players in the country in J.T. Toppin, who was garnering National Player of the Year attention before a devastating injury in February sidelined him for the remainder of the season. Based on his recovery timeline, Toppin is unlikely to suit up in Rupp Arena, but the Red Raiders will still be a top-25-caliber team without him.
In addition, sharpshooter Donovan Atwell returns after ranking third on the team last year in scoring.
The Red Raiders went out and got Darrion Williams to come back to Lubbock after playing for NC State last year. Williams played for two years at Texas Tech, including on their Elite Eight team in 2025 that led eventual national champion Florida by nine with three minutes remaining.
This will be a fun weekend in Lexington, with a home football game and the blue-out game against Vanderbilt the next night at Kroger Field.
Kentucky is 5-0 all-time against Texas Tech, with their most recent game a nail-biting 76-74 win in Lubbock in January of 2020. The Red Raiders were coming off a season where they played in the national championship, and they were less than 30 seconds away from winning it before Virginia forced overtime with a game-tying 3-pointer and then won it in overtime.
Kentucky hasn’t hosted Texas Tech since December of 1986, and the two teams also played a neutral-site game in Cincinnati in December of 1994.
