Tennessee basketball announced a home-and-home with Louisville on Thursday afternoon. The Vols will travel to Louisville to face the Cardinals on Nov. 9 next season before hosting the Cardinals at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Dec. 16 in the following 2025 season.
This year’s game is on a football Saturday— the same day that Tennessee football hosts Mississippi State at Neyland Stadium. Kickoff nor tipoff times for the two games has been announced at this point.
The Vols hold an 8-12 record all time against Louisville but won the only meeting between the two schools during Rick Barnes’ tenure. Tennessee knocked off the Cardinals 92-81 in New York City in November of 2018.
Louisville is entering its first season under head coach Pat Kelsey who left Charleston to take the Cardinals’ head coaching job. The Cardinals are coming off two of their worst seasons in program history under head coach Kenny Payne. In Payne’s two seasons as head coach, Louisville posted just a 12-52 record and were one of the worst teams in Big Six basketball.
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The Cardinals should be significantly improved next season after overhauling their roster this offseason. Some of their top additions in the transfer portal include Wisconsin’s Chucky Hepburn and James Madison’s Terrence Edwards Jr. The question for Louisville is how good they can be with a completely new roster.
There’s plenty of reason for excitement about Tennessee basketball entering Rick Barnes’ 10th season as the Vols’ head coach. Coming off a season where they won the SEC Championship and made it to the Elite Eight, Tennessee is paring strong veteran returnees including Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack and Jordan Gainey with a strong incoming transfer class.
Tennessee landed four transfers this offseason: North Florida guard Chaz Lanier, Hofstra wing Darlinstone Dubar, Charlotte forward Igor Milicic Jr. and Ohio State center Felix Okpara.
The Vols have frequently played strong non conference schedules under Barnes including home-and-homes against Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois, Cincinnati, Memphis and Arizona.
Barnes’ 10th Tennessee team’s non conference schedule is starting to come together and includes a road matchup at Illinois, a neutral site game against Miami, two games at the Baha Mar Tournament (Baylor, St. John’s and Virginia) and an unnamed matchup in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
