Vols Basketball Picks Up Home-and-Home Series With Louisville
(utsports.com) KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee announced Thursday an agreement with the University of Louisville for a two-year, home-and-home series in men’s basketball.
The Volunteers will travel to Louisville, Ky., this fall in the initial game of the series, with action slated for Nov. 9, 2024, at the KFC Yum! Center. The Cardinals will make a return trip to Knoxville next season and the two sides will face off Dec. 16, 2025, at Food City Center.
The schools, approximately 250 miles apart, have previously met 20 times, with Tennessee holding an 8-12 mark in the all-time series. The Volunteers are 5-5 on the road, 1-5 at home and 2-2 at neutral sites. In each of the past five affairs, at least one team has been ranked in the top 15.
This will be the second matchup between the teams during Rick Barnes‘ tenure as the Tennessee head coach. The fifth-ranked Volunteers defeated Louisville, 92-81, on Nov. 21, 2018, in the NIT Season Tip-Off at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. That is the lone Tennessee/Louisville meeting over the last 15 seasons.
The most recent non-neutral game between the Volunteers and Cardinals came on Jan. 22, 2005, when No. 14 Louisville won, 85-62, on its home court. The prior year, the teams met in Knoxville, with fifth-ranked Louisville claiming a 65-62 victory on Jan. 25, 2004.
Former Tennessee head coach Wade Houston, who led the Volunteers from 1989-94, is a Louisville alumnus who worked as an assistant for the Cardinals for 13 seasons, 1976-89, before coming to Rocky Top. Houston, who hails from nearby Alcoa, Tenn., was the first black head men’s basketball coach in the SEC and, alongside two 1962 classmates, one of the first three black men’s basketball players at Louisville.
In March 2019, Barnes instituted the Wade Houston Leadership Award, given to the team member who best exemplified leadership, a team-first approach and exemplary work ethic. Wade’s son, Allan, Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer, is among the program’s six letter winners from Louisville, as is 1952-53 team captain Hank Bertelkamp.
Louisville is entering its first season under the direction of head coach Pat Kelsey, who went 75-27 over the past three years at the College of Charleston.
The Cardinals are the second confirmed high-major opponent the Volunteers will face on the road in 2024-25, as Tennessee will make a return trip to Illinois for the second leg of a home-and-home with the Fighting Illini. That contest, featuring two teams coming off Elite Eight appearances, is slated for Dec. 14, 2024, in Champaign, Ill.
