Kentucky basketball game against Clemson in SEC/ACC Challenge gets late tipoff

It will be a late tipoff between Kentucky and Clemson in their marquee nonconference showdown in the SEC/ACC Challenge in December.

If you’re looking forward to seeing the Kentucky Wildcats square off against the Clemson Tigers as part of this year’s SEC/ACC Challenge, you might need an excuse to miss work the following day.

That’s because Kentucky basketball’s game against Clemson will be a late tipoff. The Wildcats and Tigers will get underway at 9:30 p.m. locally in the Bluegrass State when the two teams meet on Dec. 3 at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson. The game will be televised on ESPN, who announced start times for the SEC/ACC Challenge on Monday.

Kentucky hasn’t faced Clemson on the hardwood since the beginning of the 1997-98 season, a 76-61 Wildcats victory at the Premier Classic in Phoenix that November. Tubby Smith and Rick Barnes were the head coaches at Kentucky and Clemson, respectively, at the time.

The Wildcats went on to win the NCAA men’s basketball championship against the Utah Utes, led by the late Rick Majerus, at the Alamodome in San Antonio in March 1998.

A year earlier, Clemson beat Kentucky, 79-71, on Nov. 15, 1996 in the BCA Classic at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. It would turn out to be Rick Pitino’s final season as Wildcats head coach. Pitino would lose his bid at a second straight title months later with a loss to Arizona in the national championship game — also at RCA Dome.

Kentucky leads the all-time series against Clemson, 12-4.

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Clemson is coming off its best season in over 40 years. The Tigers reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament last March for only the second time in school history — and the first time since 1980.

Kentucky was a No. 3 seed in the tournament but fell to No. 14 seed Oakland in the first round in John Calipari’s final game as Wildcats coach after 15 seasons. Amid mounting pressure, Calipari left Lexington for the Arkansas Razorbacks’ coaching job weeks later.

Mark Pope is entering his first season as Kentucky’s coach. A former Wildcats player who was a member of the school’s 1996 national championship team, Pope returned to Lexington back in April after five seasons as head coach at BYU.