UCLA will host Kentucky in Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 3, 2015 (photo by Don Liebig)
Courtesy: UCLA Athletics
LOS ANGELES – The UCLA men’s basketball team will face Kentucky in a home-and-home series over the next two seasons, it was announced Monday.
UCLA will host the Wildcats in their first-ever trip to Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 3, 2015. Kentucky will in turn host the Bruins at Rupp Arena, also for the first time ever, in Lexington, Ky., the following season on Dec. 3, 2016. UCLA is already scheduled to face Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic later this month (Dec. 20) at the United Center in Chicago.
“We are excited to schedule this home-and-home series with Kentucky and add to what we already believe is a very competitive non-conference schedule next season,” UCLA head coach Steve Alford said. “Coach Cal and I go back a long ways, and I have the utmost respect for him and what he has been able to build at Kentucky. This is a big win for fans of college basketball in Southern California who will now have the opportunity to watch two of the sport’s most storied programs meet in Pauley Pavilion.”
The non-conference portion of the Bruins’ 2015-16 schedule includes a Thanksgiving week trip to compete in the EA Sports Maui Invitational (Nov. 23-25) in the Lahaina Civic Center on the island of Maui. Next season’s eight-team field includes Chaminade, Indiana, Kansas, St. John’s, UCLA, UNLV, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.
In addition, UCLA will play in the CBS Sports Classic against North Carolina at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Dec. 19, 2015. The Bruins are also scheduled to play the second game of a home-and-home series at Gonzaga on Dec. 12, 2015.
UCLA’s home contest against Kentucky in Dec. 2015 will mark the Wildcats’ first-ever trip to play in Pauley Pavilion. UCLA last hosted a game against Kentucky in the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Dec. 4, 1959.
The Bruins have not played at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena. UCLA previously faced the Wildcats in Lexington on Dec. 26, 1951, and on Feb. 17, 1961. Since the meeting in 1961, the prior seven games in the all-time series have been played at neutral sites.
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