Kansas head coach Bill Self talks about the Jayhawks’ seeding during a press conference following the NCAA Tournament selection show on Sunday, March 16, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas will face Arkansas in the first round in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo by Nick Krug

The Kansas men’s basketball team has a preseason opponent set for the next two seasons.

KU will travel to Louisville, Kentucky, to face the Cardinals in an exhibition game at the KFC Yum! Center on Oct. 24, Louisville announced on Tuesday morning. The game’s time and television information have yet to be announced.

“We’ve been in (that arena) once. We got beat, Villanova in the Elite Eight, so obviously a great memory,” KU coach Bill Self joked. “But we’ll be excited to go back.”

The Jayhawks will later host Louisville in Lawrence ahead of the 2026-27 season.

KU is 6-5 against Louisville in the two teams’ regular-season history, with the most recent matchup a 98-77 victory for the Jayhawks in Louisville on Jan. 16, 1993.

The Cardinals are led by Pat Kelsey, a former College of Charleston coach who in his first season at Louisville guided the program to a 27-8 record with an 18-2 mark in the ACC. They reached the NCAA Tournament as a No. 8 seed but lost in the first round to Creighton.

This offseason, the Cardinals have brought in a marquee recruit at guard in Mikel Brown Jr. as well as transfers such as Ryan Conwell (Xavier), Isaac McKneely (Virginia) and Adrian Wooley (Kennesaw State).

This pair of forthcoming exhibitions follows a recent series of charity preseason games KU has played on the road in the last two years. In 2023, the Jayhawks traveled to Illinois for a game to benefit victims of the Maui wildfires; in 2024, they played Arkansas at Bud Walton Arena to benefit mental health charities.

“We’ve been beaten the last two years in a road game, even though they weren’t real games, but I think it’s good preparation for, especially, an early-season game,” Self said. “And Louisville should be loaded. It’ll be a tough start to what will be a ridiculously hard schedule.”

The NCAA recently changed its rules so that teams can now play multiple exhibitions against Division I programs and the proceeds do not necessarily have to go to charity. Louisville did not mention any kind of charitable beneficiary in its announcement.

Self had previously expressed interest in having exhibitions benefit his program’s efforts to share revenue with athletes (pending the finalization of the House v. NCAA settlement). On Tuesday, though, he was somewhat less sure about the financial implications of this year’s exhibition in that realm.

“I don’t know that I understand the rule well enough and the settlement’s not signed,” Self said. “From what I understand, (it) is they’ll pay us a guarantee to go there and then if we were to host a similar game then we’d pay that respective team a guarantee to come to our place. But in the past, through a charity game, that could go towards NIL if it’s a charity game and it’s a legitimate NIL opportunity.”

He said he isn’t sure whether that will be the case this year.

“It is beneficial that we can at least receive a payout to go somewhere,” he continued. “Now whether or not that goes to NIL or that goes to the athletic department, I don’t know how that works.”

KU is also expected to host an in-state Division II school for a home exhibition, as it usually does prior to the season. If the pattern continues from previous years, it would be Emporia State.