St. Louis
It is well established that Indianapolis has become the city where Kentucky men’s basketball national title dreams go to die.
In Indy, UK has lost an NCAA championship game (1997), lost an undefeated season in the Final Four (2015) and lost to a No. 15 seed in the round of 64 (2022) .
Conversely, St. Louis has long been a city where the Big Blue’s March Madness dreams take flight.
In the Gateway to the West, Kentucky has won an NCAA championship game (1978), ended a foe’s undefeated season in the NCAA tourney (2014) and, just Friday, won a mini-March Madness classic with an 89-84 overtime victory over Santa Clara.
If that weren’t enough, St. Louis has also played host to three of the greatest March Madness individual performances (see below) in UK’s regal men’s hoops history.
So if you are looking for a reason to think the chronically inconsistent 2025-26 Cats (22-13) can oust viable Final Four contender Iowa State (28-7) in Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Midwest Region round of 32, the city where the game will be played should be a primary source of your hope.
In St. Louis, a hot-shooting, left-handed UK forward, Jack Givens, poured in 41 points in the 1978 NCAA title game to lead Joe B. Hall’s Cats to a 94-88 win over Duke — and Kentucky’s fifth national championship.
In St. Louis, a hot-shooting, left-handed UK forward, Tayshaun Prince, poured in 41 points in the 2022 round of 32 to lead Tubby Smith’s Wildcats to the Sweet 16 with an 87-82 win over Tulsa.
In St. Louis on Friday, a dynamic Kentucky wing, Otega Oweh, put his name on a list with basketball royalty by going for 35 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in leading the Cats in a thriller over Santa Clara.
Overall, Kentucky has won its past eight games and 11 of the prior 12 contests it has played in the city of St. Louis.
On Saturday, Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger told reporters at Enterprise Center that Cyclones star forward Joshua Jefferson, who sprained his left ankle and played only three minutes in ISU’s opening-round win over Tennessee State, seems “unlikely” to play vs. Kentucky.
“We’re continuing to evaluate,” Otzelberger said. “It appears unlikely, but you never want to rule anything out. … We’ll be prepared to go either way.”
Whether Jefferson can play or not, Kentucky will have to surmount formidable challenges to beat Iowa State.
In ISU wing Milan Momcilovic, Kentucky will face the NCAA Division I men’s basketball leader in 3-point shooting percentage (49.4%).
With Kentucky starting three guards in the 6-foot-4 range, the 6-foot-8 Momcilovic will loom above the defenders that UK will send at him.
“You have to hit him in a bunch of different ways,” UK coach Mark Pope said of Momcilovic. “You’d like to get there where he doesn’t get any rhythm.”
In addition to his height, the muscle that Momcilovic packs on his 225-pound frame makes him a matchup problem, Pope said.
“One of the things that’s probably under-appreciated about him is how physical he is,” Pope said. “He owns his line coming off screens, and that’s hard to do in this game, especially with how physical the game is right now.”
Defensively, Iowa State brings the chaos. The Cyclones are forcing 15.3 turnovers a game. That could be problematic for UK, which averaged 12.8 turnovers in its Southeastern Conference losses this year.
Iowa State brings “two (defenders) to the ball pretty much every possession,” Kentucky guard Collin Chandler said. “I don’t think we’ve played a team like that.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge UK faces is coming back down after its electric victory over Santa Clara on Friday. Oweh extended the Cats’ season by banking in a 40-foot 3-point shot just ahead of the final buzzer of regulation to force overtime.
According to CBS, the Kentucky star put his name on a list with Oscar Robertson, Bill Bradley and Larry Bird as the only known players to go for at least 35 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in an NCAA Tournament game.
“It’s crazy,” Oweh said of having his name linked with three all-time basketball icons. “I just gotta thank God, for real, for it all. I never would have thought (I’d be on a list like that). But, that’s just something that you gotta be proud of.”
Still, Oweh said the buzzer-beater and his epic overall performance vs. Santa Clara will only gain full validation if Kentucky backs them up by continuing to win in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
“I feel like it really only means something if you keep on winning, keep on making noise,” Oweh said. “I think about (the buzzer beater) for a crazy moment. But we on to the next one.”
Though strong, Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament mojo in St. Louis has not been perfect.
In 1999, Michigan State denied UK’s national championship repeat bid by vanquishing the Cats 73-66 in what was then known as the Trans World Dome.
It is the only Kentucky defeat in the city of St. Louis since 1964.
Even so, if you are a UK fan envisioning an upset of Iowa State, history says there’s no place where Kentucky has a better chance than under the shadows of The Gateway Arch.
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Mark Story
Lexington Herald-Leader
Mark Story has worked in the Lexington Herald-Leader sports department since Aug. 27, 1990, and has been a Herald-Leader sports columnist since 2001. I have covered every Kentucky-Louisville football game since 1994, every UK-U of L basketball game but three since 1996-97 and every Kentucky Derby since 1994.
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