For the better part of the last two decades, the always infamous University of Kentucky (UK) vs. University of Louisville (UofL) in-state rivalry has been painfully one-sided. The Wildcats, led up until last year by John Calipari at the wheel, were 22-3 against the Cardinals since 2010 entering the current college basketball season.
Inconsistency and NCAA-sanctioned punishments haunted Louisville’s program as the formerly great rivalry turned into a routine beat down.
The team saw multiple coaches come and go, with the only constant being their growing inability to fill the stands at home. Kentucky, on the other hand, won a national championship in that stretch. The two programs just weren’t a viable matchup any longer.
That is, until this season. On their home floor and in front of an unusually packed crowd, Louisville was able to take advantage of an injured Kentucky team, coming away with a 96-88 win that might have just been the program’s biggest in years.
While a loss to Louisville will always be a hard pill to swallow in Lexington, the rivalry’s seemingly renewed nature is good for both teams, and the sport in the state of Kentucky overall. As fun as Kentucky fans (myself included) will say that it’s been to dominate their red-laden counterparts over the last 15 years, much of the matchup’s legendary energy and angst disappeared in the pattern.
If they were always losing, what did Louisville have to hang their hats on? Inversely, given Kentucky’s constant state of victory, the annual game against the Cards began to represent little more than another box to check.
With new coaches come new banners, and with new banners, new expectations. Having both hired once more last season – in Mark Pope at UK and Pat Kelsey at UofL, respectively – the team’s having been 1-1 since that juncture makes sense for what each team was before the latter’s drought in the victory column.
That is, head-to-head competitors that share state lines, trade outcomes and, perhaps most importantly, patently dislike one another. With defeats going being traded both ways, pushing and shoving are often non-negotiable additions to the deal, also.
To put it pPlainly, Kentucky vs. Louisville looks to be back in prime form. As much as I disliked the result last week, I can’t wait until the Cardinals have to come to Rupp Arena next year. Because, for the first time in a long time, the game feels set to actually mean something.
Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated.
