LEXINGTON — Unlike so many players who populate college basketball rosters — particularly at Kentucky, which has signed an abundance of McDonald’s All-Americans and has had more players selected in the NBA draft (and more first-round products) than any program in the country — Koby Brea wasn’t a can’t-miss prospect at the beginning of high school.

In fact, during his freshman season at Norman Thomas High School in New York, he didn’t survive roster cuts to make the team. Brea used it as motivation after transferring to Monsignor Scanlan High School, located in the Bronx. His first season at Monsignor Scanlan, Brea helped the junior varsity team reach the final four of the city championship tournament. Later that year, he represented the Dominican National Team in the U-17 FIBA Centrobasket Championships in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Brea appeared in five games, averaging 9.2 points, 4.6 boards and 2.8 assists in 26.8 minutes per outing.

That propelled him into his junior high school season.

By then, he had moved up to the varsity.

His debut game with the varsity was against highly touted New York power Archbishop Stepinac, Brea announced his arrival on the national stage. Facing off against Archbishop Stepinac’s pair of McDonald’s All-Americans, R.J. Davis (now at North Carolina) and AJ Griffin (who went to Duke), Brea put on a show. He poured in 21 points in an 81-69 loss to its nationally ranked foe.

“That’s when everybody knew, like, ‘Yeah, this kid could really be different,’” Chris Florentino, Monsignor Scanlan’s JV boys basketball coach, told The Courier Journal.

Coaching hoops isn’t Florentino’s only job at the school, though. He’s also Monsignor Scanlan’s director of admissions and assisted Brea with his transfer into the school. It was a seamless transition.

“He was a quiet, mild-mannered kid,” Florentino said of Brea, who graduated in 2020. “Super pleasant to be around. People person. He was one of those guys everybody loved, to be honest. He wasn’t like a Hollywood-type of guy. He was humble. And I think that came from his family. … It was good to have him around.”

It’s the same thing UK and its fans have said since the 6-foot-7, 215-pound guard joined the program during the offseason.

Brea was the nation’s top 3-point shooter last season, sinking nearly half (100 for 201; 49.8%) of his long-range attempts for Dayton. But after four years with the Flyers, he entered the transfer portal. That set off a spirited recruitment that involved some of the country’s most storied programs. He wound up picking UK over a quartet of other blue bloods: Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and UConn.

His torrid shooting from distance hasn’t slowed down this season. Through the first four games of the Wildcats’ 2024-25 campaign, Brea had made a scorching 78.9% (15 for 19) of his 3-point attempts. Though he’s cooled off slightly, he’s still within striking distance of topping the national chart for the second time in as many seasons.

He shrugs off the title of “college basketball’s best 3-point shooter,” however, a callback to Florentino’s mention of his former pupil’s humility.

“I’m always focused on what I have to do as a player for my team to succeed, what we have to do as a team,” Brea said. “And I’m always just looking to win. And within that, I play my best. People free me up, and we all love playing with each other. So I know that any time I’m open, those guys are confident, and they trust in me a lot — and they’re willing to pass it. And as a shooter, that’s all you want: You want to have the confidence and trust of your teammates.”

They not only have faith in him. They’re in awe.

“Koby is one of a kind, man,” fifth-year senior forward Andrew Carr said. “It’s really special.”

Carr, a gifted shooter himself, wasn’t sure how Brea does it.

“I think it’s got to be a little bit of God-given touch and talent. He works super, super hard. We see that and just the way the ball comes off his hand. He thinks it’s going in; we all think it’s going in every single time.”

For all the praise he receives — and rightly so — for his shooting touch, Brea isn’t satisfied. He’s striving for more ways to frustrate foes. Even if those areas hadn’t been his calling card during the four-season run with the Flyers.

“Outside of his 3-point shooting, his statistical profile? He doesn’t really do much else,” Evan Miyakawa, a basketball statistician who runs the analytics website EvanMiya.com, told The Courier Journal last summer. “He doesn’t really rebound the ball much. He doesn’t really provide for teammates much. He was a middling defender, at best, for Dayton last year. So his value is 3-point shooting. That’s what it is. But there’s not a lot outside of that, and because of that, that’s why I don’t have him ranked as highly as some of UK’s other transfers.”

Brea is well aware of the criticism.

“That was something that I focused on a lot this summer: just U evolving from a shooter to an all-around player,” he said. “I continue to be labeled as ‘a shooter,’ and I want to be more than that, you know?”

That label — that he’s “just a shooter” — is bothersome to Brea.

“I know that there’s a lot more to my game,” he said, “but obviously that’s what I do best, so I understand why they might feel that way. But at the end of the day as a player, you just want to keep evolving and keep growing. I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of that — and thanks to the coaches for that.

“It never stops. You’ve just got to keep going.”

Florentino has no doubt Brea will do just that. And Florentino can’t wait for Saturday, when Brea will be back in the Big Apple with the Wildcats. That day, UK takes on Ohio State at Madison Square Garden, part of this year’s edition of the CBS Sports Classic.

When Brea was in town with Dayton for previous matchups versus Fordham, all of Monsignor Scanlan’s teams — varsity and varsity B, JV and freshman — were on hand to support him.

He’ll have a sizable cheering section at “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” too.

“Being that he’s from Manhattan, he’s gonna have the Dominican crew in there waiting on his arrival,” Florentino said. “So I know he’s definitely gonna look to put on a show.”

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

With five minutes and seven seconds remaining in a very good game between the Louisville Cardinals and Kentucky Wildcats, a disappointingly dormant rivalry erupted back to life in Rupp Arena.

Louisville guard Reyne Smith dove on the floor for a loose ball in front of the Cardinals’ bench. Kentucky big man Brandon Garrison bent down and attempted to yank the ball away, but in the process fouled Smith. Tempers flared briefly—did Garrison attempt to drop a foot on Smith’s chest?—and Garrison was pushed by a scrum of players into the Louisville bench, a white jersey surrounded by red. Wildcats guard Lamont Butler joined the hubbub, and coach Mark Pope sprinted over to make sure nothing escalated. So did a handful of sheriffs, who quickly appeared on the court.

“That was probably the most fun part of the game, right?” Pope quipped afterward.

That moment—and the play of both teams before and after the little dustup—was exactly what the most heated rivalry in men’s college basketball needed. Some juice. Some edge. Some competitive heat. Some pride. Nothing stupid and nothing violent, but a clear indication that the Cards and Cats are going to resume going at each other without backing down.

Kentucky won the game, 93–85. That was the expected outcome, as the Cats improved to 10–1—better than expected for a completely new roster. But shorthanded Louisville (6–5), which has lost two key players for the season to injury, battled for 40 minutes against its hated rival. That’s more than the Cardinals have done in this game in years.

Here’s how it went during the dismal, disastrous two years with Kenny Payne as coach: Louisville trailed Kentucky 18–2 out of the gate in 2022 at Rupp; and Louisville trailed by 17 at halftime last year at home. They were early knockouts, after which Wildcats coach John Calipari insulted everyone’s intelligence by trying to prop up his former assistant, Payne, as a capable head coach. Payne was fired with an embarrassing 12–52 record after dragging the program to the bottom.

Now Louisville has a real coach in Pat Kelsey. And Kentucky has a real coach who knows what it means to play in this rivalry, having gone 1–1 against Louisville while playing for Rick Pitino during the 1994–95 and ’95–96 seasons. The memories of the 88–86 loss in Freedom Hall came flooding back to Pope on Friday night.

“The bus ride home from Louisville—I was in a full-on, teary-eyed sweat last night,” Pope said postgame. “I had blocked it out of my head and it all came rushing back. You get locked in a bus with Coach P for an hour and a half after a two-point loss against Louisville? Whew. I wouldn’t wish that on any of you. I bet only half you guys would come out alive.”

In an era of constant player movement, both these teams are stocked with first-year players who hail from all over the place and had no firsthand knowledge of what Kentucky vs. Louisville means, and what it has meant for 40 years. To help them understand, Pope had 15 former UK players write letters to the 15 current players to tell them their memories of playing Louisville. It was an inspired teaching moment.

“Those letters, they’re really, really special,” Pope said. “Some time five, 10, 15, 20 years from now, our guys will be writing letters to the next generation of players.”

Duke vs. North Carolina draws brighter lights and has probably produced more great games, but this is the basketball version of the Iron Bowl football rivalry between the Auburn Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide. In a state without major pro sports, this is an all-consuming competition between fan bases that can become a veritable culture war.

There was, memorably, a fight at a dialysis clinic between a Louisville fan and a Kentucky fan before the teams met in the 2012 Final Four. But every day of the year there are lesser skirmishes happening—in offices, on school buses, in bars, anywhere.

That’s especially true in the battleground city of Louisville, where the majority of the town wears red and black but a large minority wears blue and white. Get out further into the state and it’s almost all blue. Even after taking over a depressed program that had some of the spirit beaten out of it, Kelsey has quickly picked up on the dynamic.

“This is a great, great rivalry,” Kelsey said. “Not just in collegiate basketball, but it’s one of the really cool rivalries in all of American sports. We’ve got to do our part and win some to continue to make it a rivalry. It’s hard to truly describe—especially in our city of Louisville—how much this rivalry means. [The fans] reminded me early and often, every single day. Every time I get gas, every time I get something to eat in the community, ‘Hey Coach, how’s it going? You going to beat Kentucky this year?’ So I get it, I get it.

“When I walked out there today, I’m going to be honest with you, the pageantry of the Louisville-Kentucky rivalry hit me. I looked around and saw the atmosphere before the jump ball went up, and I took a minute to truly appreciate how special it was. But if it’s 365 days until we play again, I’m going to be reminded four million times when that game is coming up. And we’ll be looking forward to it.”

Kelsey will be thrilled that next year he won’t have to face fifth-year Kentucky guard Lamont Butler, who transferred in from San Diego State and was absolutely brilliant for the Wildcats. Butler had missed the last two games with an ankle injury and hadn’t even practiced much—then he went out and hung 33 on the Cardinals, making every shot from the field. Butler was 10-for-10, including 6-for-6 from three-point range, scoring a career-high 33 points.

“Lamont Butler just gave us one of the all-time great performances in the history of this super-special game,” Pope said, without exaggerating.

Butler had made only seven threes all season, out of 31 attempts. Then he lit up Louisville, opening the second half with three straight threes and scoring nine of Kentucky’s first 11 points after intermission.

“It was like [he was] touched by God,” Kelsey said of Butler’s shooting spree. “That ball was going in.”

But every time the Cats staggered the Cards with a run, Louisville answered. The Cardinals cut the deficit to three points twice in the second half on baskets by guard Chucky Hepburn (26 points, five assists). They cut it to five with just over three minutes remaining. But Kentucky never let it become truly nerve-wracking for the crowd of 21,093, which kept the heat on the visitors throughout.

“That’s the greatest atmosphere I’ve ever played in,” Louisville’s Terrence Edwards Jr. said.

That’s what this game should be like every year.

LEXINGTON — Let’s rivalry.

Today, Louisville and Kentucky basketball will battle for the 57th time dating back to 1913. But this meeting at Rupp Arena will be unlike any in the series that came before it.

For the first time since 1930, the Cardinals (6-4) and Wildcats (9-1) underwent coaching changes during the same offseason; and the new guys in charge, Pat Kelsey and Mark Pope, did not bring back a single scholarship player from their predecessors’ final teams.

U of L is looking to snap a two-game losing streak in the rivalry, during which it’s had a 21-point average margin of defeat. If Kelsey can orchestrate its first win in Lexington since Jan. 5, 2008, with only eight healthy scholarship players at his disposal, it would be quite the statement. The Cards are 5-21 all time against UK on the road.

The Cats have a 39-17 advantage in the rivalry and dominated it under former coach John Calipari, who went 13-3 against Louisville before leaving for Arkansas and taking the man Kelsey succeeded, Kenny Payne, with him.

“I really believe in this: Unless you start winning one every once in a while, it kind of stops being a big rivalry,” Kelsey said Friday. “I’m well, well, well aware of that. I know how much it means to our fan base and this city to win this game.

“I put everything I got, and our players do, into our next opponent; and we’re doing the same stinkin’ thing for this game,” he added. “Just to make everybody feel a bit better at home — maybe a little bit more. Why not? Hopefully, that’ll settle people down. I understand; it’s big. It’s big to me.”

Kelsey and Pope have been complimentary of each other since they’ve stepped into the spotlight. On Friday, the former said the latter was, in his mind, the Naismith College Coach of the Year “if the season ended today.”

“In my opinion, this is the best (Kentucky team) in the last 10 years,” Kelsey said. “Not only is this team probably as dangerous and as talented and as potent (as the others), but they’re older, as well.”

Pope is, indeed, on a heater out of the gate. UK has top-10 wins over Duke and Gonzaga under its belt and entered the weekend with the No. 1 offense (91.1 points per game) and the 12th-best scoring margin (20.8) in the country. But the Cats are dealing with some injuries of their own; and their coach knows firsthand that anything can happen when these in-state rivals collide.

“It’s like going in the backyard with your brother and playing 1-on-1,” said Pope, who went 2-1 vs. Louisville as a player for Rick Pitino at Kentucky from 1994-96.

“We might as well take all of our analytics and just throw them out the window; because what we know is the game’s not going to look anything like all the other games looked like. It’s just a brawl.”

Follow along below with live updates from Rupp Arena:

We know the Cards will be without junior guard Koren Johnson, fifth-year forward Kasean Pryor, and senior forward Aboubacar Traore against Kentucky. Johnson and Pryor suffered season-ending shoulder and knee injuries, respectively; and Traore is still on the mend from a broken left arm.

The Cats will for certain be down one player: fifth-year guard Kerr Kriisa, who is out with a foot injury that required surgery this week. Starting point guard Lamont Butler, a graduate transfer from San Diego State, might miss his third game in a row due to an ankle injury he sustained during a Dec. 3 loss at Clemson.

“Lamont was on the court a little bit yesterday,” Pope said Friday. “He didn’t do anything with us, but he was on the court a little bit. We’ll kind of see how it goes today — try and roll him out there. I would love to have him; he would really help us. I just don’t know if he’s going to be quite ready.”

The game between the Cards and the Cats will air on ESPN, which is channel 602 on AT&T U-Verse; channel 206 on DirecTV; channel 140 on Dish; and channel 506 on Spectrum.

Dan Shulman (play-by-play) and Jay Bilas (analyst) will be on the call.

If you have cable, you can livestream the game via the ESPN app or ESPN.com/watch.

Paul Rogers (play-by-play) and Bob Valvano (analyst) will have the call on the Cardinal Sports Network (WLCL 93.9-FM and WGTK 970-AM in Louisville). You can also listen online via GoCards.com.

Tom Leach (play-by-play) and Jack Givens (analyst) will have the call on the UK Sports Network (WHAS 840-AM in Louisville and WLAP 630-AM and WBUL 98.1-FM in Lexington). You can also listen online via UKAthletics.com.

Betting odds: Kentucky is a 11.5-point favorite (-110) on DraftKings, which set the over/under at 156.5 points (-110). The money line odds are: UK -575, U of L +425.

Score predictions: KenPom.com gives Kentucky an 85% chance of winning and projects an 83-72 final score in its favor. BartTorvik.com is also forecasting a Cats victory (84%), with a projected final score of 84-73.

• Monday, Oct. 21: vs. Young Harris College (exhibition) | SCORE: Louisville 106, Young Harris College 59
• Monday, Oct. 28: vs. Spalding (exhibition) | SCORE: Louisville 99, Spalding 54
• Monday, Nov. 4: vs. Morehead State | SCORE: Louisville 93, Morehead State 45
• Saturday. Nov. 9: vs. Tennessee | SCORE: Tennessee 77, Louisville 55
• Tuesday, Nov. 19: vs. Bellarmine | SCORE: Louisville 100, Bellarmine 68
• Friday, Nov. 22: vs. Winthrop | SCORE: Louisville 76, Winthrop 61
• Wednesday, Nov. 27: vs. Indiana (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas) | SCORE: Louisville 89, Indiana 61
• Thursday, Nov. 28: vs. West Virginia (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas) | SCORE: Louisville 79, West Virginia 70
• Friday, Nov. 29: vs. Oklahoma (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas) | SCORE: Oklahoma 69, Louisville 64
• Tuesday, Dec. 3: Ole Miss (SEC/ACC Challenge) | SCORE: Ole Miss 86, Louisville 63
• Sunday, Dec. 8: vs. Duke | SCORE: Duke 76, Louisville 65
• Wednesday, Dec. 11: vs. UTEP | SCORE: Louisville 77, UTEP 74
• Saturday, Dec. 14: at Kentucky, 5:15 p.m., ESPN
• Saturday, Dec. 21: at Florida State, 2 p.m., The CW
• Saturday, Dec. 28: vs. Eastern Kentucky, noon, The CW
• Wednesday, Jan. 1: vs. North Carolina, ACC Network
• Saturday, Jan. 4: at Virginia, 4 p.m., ACC Network
• Tuesday, Jan. 7: vs. Clemson, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU
• Saturday, Jan. 11: at Pittsburgh, either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU
• Tuesday, Jan. 14: at Syracuse, 7 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, Jan. 18: vs. Virginia, either ESPN or ESPN2
• Tuesday, Jan. 21: at SMU, 9 p.m., ACC Network
• Tuesday, Jan. 28: vs. Wake Forest, 7 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, Feb. 1: at Georgia Tech, 3:45 p.m., The CW
• Wednesday, Feb. 5: at Boston College, 7 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, Feb. 8: vs. Miami
• Wednesday, Feb. 12: at N.C. State, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU
• Sunday, Feb. 16: at Notre Dame, 8 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, Feb. 22: vs. Florida State, noon, The CW
• Tuesday, Feb. 25: at Virginia Tech, 9 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, March 1: vs. Pittsburgh, either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU
• Wednesday, March 5: vs. California, 9 p.m., ACC Network
• Saturday, March 8: vs. Stanford, ESPNU
• Tuesday, March 11, through Saturday, March 15: ACC Tournament (Spectrum Center; Charlotte, North Carolina)

• Frank Anselem-Ibe (center, fifth year)
• Patrick Antonelli (guard, fifth year)
• Terrence Edwards Jr. (guard/forward, fifth year)
• J’Vonne Hadley (guard, fifth year)
• Chucky Hepburn (guard, senior)
• Koren Johnson (guard, junior)
• Aly Khalifa (center, senior, redshirt)
• Spencer Legg (guard, junior)
• Aidan McCool (guard, graduate student)
• Kasean Pryor (forward, fifth year)
• Kobe Rodgers (guard, senior, redshirt)
• Khani Rooths (forward, freshman)
• James Scott (forward, sophomore)
• Cole Sherman (guard, junior)
• Reyne Smith (guard, senior)
• Aboubacar Traore (forward, senior)
• Noah Waterman (forward, sixth year)

• Oct. 23: exhibition vs. Kentucky Wesleyan ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 123, Kentucky Wesleyan 52
• Oct. 29: exhibition vs. Minnesota State Mankato ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 98, Minnesota State Mankato 67
• Nov. 4: vs. Wright State (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 103, Wright State 62
• Nov. 9: vs. Bucknell (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 100, Bucknell 72
• Nov. 12: vs. Duke (Champions Classic; State Farm Arena, Atlanta) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 77, Duke 72
• Nov. 19: vs. Lipscomb, (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 97, Lipscomb 68
• Nov. 22: vs. Jackson State (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 108, Jackson State 59
• Nov. 26: vs. Western Kentucky (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 87, Western Kentucky 68
• Nov. 29: vs. Georgia State (Rupp Arena) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 105, Georgia State 76
• Dec. 3: at Clemson (ACC/SEC Challenge) ∣ SCORE: Clemson 70, Kentucky 66
• Dec. 7: vs. Gonzaga (Climate Pledge Arena; Seattle) ∣ SCORE: Kentucky 90, Gonzaga 89 (OT)
• Dec. 11: vs. Colgate (Rupp Arena) | SCORE: Kentucky 78, Colgate 67
• Dec. 14: vs. Louisville (Rupp Arena), 5:15 p.m., ESPN
• Dec. 21: vs. Ohio State (CBS Sports Classic; Madison Square Garden, New York), 5:30 p.m., CBS
• Dec. 31: vs. Brown (Rupp Arena), 2 p.m., ESPNU
• Jan. 4: vs. Florida (Rupp Arena), 11 a.m., ESPN
• Jan. 7: at Georgia, 7 p.m., SEC Network
• Jan. 11: at Mississippi State, 8:30 p.m., SEC Network
• Jan. 14: vs. Texas A&M (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m., ESPN2/ESPNU
• Jan. 18: vs. Alabama (Rupp Arena), noon, ESPN
• Jan. 25: at Vanderbilt, 2:30 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2
• Jan. 28: at Tennessee, 7 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 1: vs. Arkansas (Rupp Arena), 9 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 4: at Ole Miss, 7 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 8: vs. South Carolina (Rupp Arena), noon, ESPN/ESPN2
• Feb. 11: vs. Tennessee (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 15: at Texas, 8 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 19: vs. Vanderbilt (Rupp Arena), 7 p.m., SEC Network
• Feb. 22: at Alabama, 6 p.m., ESPN
• Feb. 26: at Oklahoma, 9 p.m., SEC Network
• March 1: vs. Auburn (Rupp Arena), 1/4 p.m., ABC/ESPN
• March 4: vs. LSU (Rupp Arena), 7/9 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU
• March 8: at Missouri, noon, ESPN/SEC Network

• Ansley Almonor (forward, senior)
• Koby Brea (guard, graduate)
• Lamont Butler (guard, graduate)
• Andrew Carr (forward, graduate)
• Collin Chandler (guard, freshman)
• Grant Darbyshire (guard, junior)
• Brandon Garrison (forward, sophomore)
• Walker Horn (guard, junior)
• Kerr Kriisa (guard, senior)
• Trent Noah (forward, freshman)
• Otega Oweh (guard, junior)
• Travis Perry (guard, freshman)
• Jaxson Robinson (guard, graduate)
• Zach Tow (forward, junior)
• Amari Williams (center, graduate)

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Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.