Kentucky vs. Gonzaga is an excellent early-season matchup with every team entering this week finishing in the top 10. These teams meet in Seattle, and to paraphrase Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin, the Bulldogs aren’t looking for a mail order non-conference opponent. They just want someone they can have a good game with.

No. 4 Kentucky vs. No. 7 Gonzaga

Venue: Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle
Time: Saturday, 10 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN2
Streaming: Fubo (Get Access | Save $30)

Kentucky travels to the Pacific Northwest as the top scoring team in the country. Mark Pope’s team also ranks third in rebounds per game and seventh in assists per game. Six of the Wildcats’ top seven scorers are shooting over 50 percent from the field this year. Seven players average at least five shots, and none shoot more than eleven. This transfer team came together pretty quickly. Otega Oweh appears extremely confident as the leading scorer, and Koby Brea is making more than 60 percent of his threes.

The Wildcats suffered their first loss of the season on Tuesday night, trailing Clemson by four points at Littlejohn Coliseum. The offense stumbled to 38 percent shooting and found itself on the wrong side of turnovers and rebounds. Additionally, Lamont Butler suffered an ankle injury.

Kentucky already has a decisive win against Duke and Gonzaga is an equally formidable team. The Bulldogs rank fifth in points per game and have the highest rating in Basketball Reference’s Simple Rating System. They currently share the third-best odds for the national championship, and their only loss so far is an overtime loss to West Virginia, some 2,700 miles away in Nassau.

Graham Ike leads Gonzaga with 13.8 points per game and is eighth in minutes played. That’s wild.

Ryan Nembhard leads the country in assists with 10.8 per game. Only four players in college basketball history have ever surpassed this, and it was last accomplished more than three decades ago in 1987-88. That’s wild too.

Nolan Hickman has shown significant improvement in each of his four Gonzaga campaigns. He leads the starting lineup with an effective shooting percentage of 63.8. And Mark Few’s defense is keeping opponents at bay from behind the arc at an unsightly 24.5 percent.

With two of the best offenses in the country playing in a city that has little basketball culture, Saturday night’s game could be one of the highlights of the sports weekend.

Matchup history: This is only the fourth matchup between these two programs. Last season’s game was the closest ever – Gonzaga won 89-85. Two years ago, the second-ranked Bulldogs defeated the No. 4 Wildcats behind 20-point outbursts from Drew Timme, Julian Strawther and Rasir Bolton.

Kentucky vs Gonzaga odds

(Photo by Graham Ike: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)