People in Kentucky don’t play about their basketball.
Then ranked as the No. 13 team in the nation, the Kentucky Wildcats squared off against the UCLA Bruins Dec. 17 in the CBS Sports Classic, with the Wildcats getting outplayed the vast majority of the game to suffer a 63-53 loss to drop them to 7-3 in the season.
All three losses for Kentucky have come to top programs — Michigan State, No. 2 Gonzaga, No. 16 UCLA.
This is unfamiliar territory for a very dominant Wildcats program. Throughout head coach John Calipari‘s 13 seasons at Kentucky, he has 31 wins, four Final Fours, seven Elite Eights and eight Sweet 16s. No other coach has more than Calipari in those categories. Also, Calipari has a national championship that he won back in 2012 to put the cherry on top of his resume.
With the stretch of dominance, it’s made Kentucky fans spoiled, and not being used to losing three games this early in the season. The base is starting to crack and that was on full display after the UCLA game on Kentucky Sports Radio.
Well, here’s the call-in from the KSR Postgame show last night that everyone’s been talking about. #BBN 🔊🗣 pic.twitter.com/QJYhLvg7uI
— Buddy 🏀😿 (@BigBlueBud) December 18, 2022
I totally get this guy when he says that wearing the Kentucky jersey means a lot to people in that state, they get real religious about basketball in that area being a blue blood program.
Not just that, but you also have to include the swag that the UK program has. This is a dominant program that is consistently in the Final Four and always ranked somewhere in the top 10. Plus, look at the culture that it has built for them in this new hip hop era. You’ve got the blue swag, the fact that Drake is a huge fan of them, and they’re very influential over pop culture. If I were a Wildcats fan, I’d want to preserve that status too. (RELATED: REPORT: Late NIL Payments, Unkept Promises And Outright Jealousy Are Causing Massive Problems In College Basketball)
What a great rant, and I completely get where he’s coming from, though with how perfect it was, I’m skeptical that this whole thing was staged. At the same time, Kentucky fans get so passionate that I totally could believe that it was 100% authentic. Who the hell knows, but regardless, this was pretty classic in sports rant history, and what a great way to end it with the completely calm outro.
This whole thing just makes me look forward to March.