On Saturday afternoon, an era in University of Kentucky men’s basketball history ends.
When the No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats (25-5, 14-3) play host to the Florida Gators (17-13, 9-8 SEC), it will be the final UK game ever played in a 23,500-seat Rupp Arena.
Next season, a renovation that will install chair-back seats in place of bleachers along both sides (but not in the end zones) in Rupp’s upper deck will reduce capacity to some 20,500.
The upgrade in comfort for (most of) those who sit in Rupp’s upper arena is overdue. Yet with some 3,000 fewer fans, the “Rupp roar” that the biggest games have produced since the venue opened in 1976-77 will, presumably, not be the same.