The University of Louisville men’s basketball program will rekindle two of its oldest and fiercest rivalries next season.
One day after announcing a six-year series with Memphis, Louisville is set to announce a two-year series with Cincinnati, with the second game to be played in Freedom Hall in 2026 and the first to be played in the Heritage Bank Center in downtown Cincinnati in 2025.
John Rothstein of CBS was the first to report the agreement.
That game will mark a homecoming for second-year Louisville coach Pat Kelsey, who grew up in Cincinnati and played and coached at Xavier University.
Louisville has faced Cincinnati more than any other opponent in a rivalry that stretches back to 1921. The last meeting between the schools was an 81-62 loss in the 2022 Maui Invitational. The last time the teams met in the regular season was on Feb. 22, 2014, when Louisville beat then No. 7-ranked Cincinnati 58-57 in the Fifth Third Center on the UC campus.
Louisville holds a 56-44 edge in the all-time series.
The 2022 meeting between the teams was the 100th meeting in the rivalry.
Louisville’s 2026 game in Freedom Hall will be the program’s first since moving into the KFC Yum! Center downtown. Its last game in Freedom Hall was a 78-68 upset of then-No. 1 Syracuse on March 6, 2010.
In addition to the Cincinnati series, Louisville has announced a 6-year series with Memphis, to begin this season on Dec. 13 in the KFC Yum! Center. Louisville will face the Tigers in the FedEx Forum next season, and alternate meetings from there.
Louisville holds a 54-36 edge in the all-time series.
The programs have played in four different conferences together, but last met in a neutral-site game in Brooklyn on Dec. 16, 2017, an 81-72 Louisville victory.
They last met in the regular season in 2014.
The post Freedom Hall comeback set as Louisville renews rivalry with Cincinnati first appeared on Voxtrend News.
