(TNS) Kentucky basketball’s 94-78 home loss to Auburn on Saturday afternoon at Rupp Arena was undoubtedly an unpleasant viewing experience for UK basketball fans.

That is, if they found a way to watch the full game.

Auburn had already established a 16-point lead over the Wildcats with a little more than 12 minutes left in the game when the cameras at Rupp Arena abruptly cut out while Auburn star Johni Broome backed UK senior forward Ansley Almonor down in the post.

Broome made that shot after getting past Almonor, and Auburn saw out a 16-point victory over the Wildcats with ease, although watching the game completely proved to be a difficult task.

The UK Athletics account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, put out a statement regarding the technical issues at Rupp Arena.

“We’re aware of the technical difficulties ABC is experiencing broadcasting today’s (Kentucky) game,” the statement said. “They’re working to restore the broadcast as soon as possible.”

While the technical issues persisted, ABC went to its college basketball studio show to inform viewers the broadcast would switch to Texas Tech’s game against Kansas, which was being shown on ESPN.

But ABC already was scheduled to air an NHL game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins in the 3 p.m. EST time slot, following the Kentucky-Auburn game. ABC went ahead and put the hockey on while the UK game continued.

As Auburn’s nearly wire-to-wire victory over Kentucky was completed, the hockey broadcast featured a scorebug in the corner that updated viewers with the score of the UK game.

The online stream of the Kentucky-Auburn game was also unavailable on the ESPN app.

The broadcast of the Kentucky-Auburn game did eventually return to the airwaves, but it did so on ESPNEWS instead of ABC.

When the broadcast returned, play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman addressed the long outage.

“Here is what happened. A generator here at Rupp Arena caught on fire. So first and foremost, thankfully, from what we understand, everybody is OK,” Shulman said. “But obviously that knocked us off the air for a long, long time. We are back.”

The broadcast of Kentucky-Auburn returned with 2:23 left in the game — more than 30 real-life minutes after it first went out — and with Auburn leading by 14 points.

Postgame, a UK spokesperson provided the following information to media members.

“ABC’s broadcast production team experienced technical difficulties during the second half of the Kentucky vs. Auburn men’s basketball game on March 1.,” UK’s statement began. “There was a fire affecting the ABC generator equipment powering their production truck outside the Rupp Arena parking garage that caused the broadcast feed to lose power.”

Additionally, ESPN provided the following statement to the Herald-Leader about the technical issues at Rupp.

“In a freak accident, a generator at Rupp Arena caught on fire causing us to lose power and be knocked off the air as a result,” the statement read. “Thankfully, no one was harmed on-site. We apologize that fans watching on ABC were impacted for a period in the second half.”

Broadcast of UK basketball game against Auburn impacted by generator fire

The technical issues ABC had while attempting to broadcast the Kentucky-Auburn game occurred on a day when the network was set to have increased access to both teams. The network’s presentation of the game was to include “special access and a unique look into each program,” per ESPN. This was to include both Pearl and Pope wearing microphones during the game and providing access to TV cameras in their respective locker rooms for pregame and halftime content.

ESPN’s top announcing team of Shulman, Jay Bilas and Jess Sims was on the call for Saturday’s game.

While the broadcast outage occurred, some Kentucky basketball fans got creative to find a way to still watch the closing segment of the game.

One livestream of the second half from Rupp Arena — broadcast on X by a user with the username “@bigbluekodakk” — totaled several thousand views and lasted more than 30 minutes.

Auburn’s win over Kentucky gave head coach Bruce Pearl’s team the SEC regular-season championship. It was also Auburn’s first win in Lexington since January 1988.

Saturday’s broadcast snafu occurred following another TV-related problem that angered UK basketball fans during Wednesday’s road win at Oklahoma. That game was set to be broadcast on the SEC Network at 9 p.m. EST, but the conclusion of the Texas A&M vs. Vanderbilt game meant the UK game was only available on the ESPN app and Watch ESPN for most of the first half.

It took nearly 38 real-life minutes for the final 2:33 of the Texas A&M-Vanderbilt game to be played. Kentucky’s game at Oklahoma didn’t hit the SEC Network airwaves until there was 6:44 to go until halftime.