What Rivalry? An Investigative Look at the UL-UK """Rivalry""""
I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Really, I do. It’s the holiday season, but the truth abides by no solstices. A casual fan probably thinks Louisville-Kentucky basketball is a rivalry. Sports Illustrated has the rivalry listed as the second-best in college basketball. Famous international basketball scouting website HotNewHipHop agreed. 24/7 Sports has it sixth in all of the college sports. Sixth! And I’ll mention here that the “24/7″ in “24/7 Sports stands for the literal amount of time they spend scouting only college sports. I post those awful, awful links not to boast, but to show that I’m not hyping this rivalry up as a clearly biased party. The consensus is that this is a rivalry. It is not.
Even ESPN Stats and Information has the case represented. They say Kentucky is 11-2 in the John Calipari era. This is not true. Cal’s first season was the 2009-10 campaign:
The 2019 game has not been added yet but we know the results from this tweet, and only this tweet:
So count the blue:
1. W (1/10)
2. W (12/10). 15 point victory.
3. W (12/11)
4. W (3/12). You’ll notice the little bitty “F” by this one on the chart above. That’s because this one was in the Final Four. The Cats won and went on to win the National Championship.
5. HOLD THE PHONE. There’s no blue. This one is grey because Louisville won the basketball game but ended up having to forfeit their victories that season due to a terrible prostitution mishap. Nobody gets the win here, sadly.
6. W (12/13) Back to our regularly scheduled program.
7. W (3/14) Again, you’ll notice this one has a little bitty “G” by it. That stands for “Goddamn, they beat them in the NCAA Tournament again”. This one happened in the Sweet Sixteen (shoutout @demcguff for the correction. I previously had it listed as the Elite Eight).
8. W (12/14)
9. W (12/15)
10. L (12/16). Our first loss to a legal team.
11. W. (12/17). 29 point victory. Ouch.
12. W (12/18). 13 point victory.
13. W (12/19)
Our final tally is 11-1-1 in the Calipari era, NOT the 11-2 the liberal LEFT would like you to believe. What other rivalry has the “underdog” winning 8% of the time? Globetrotters-Generals? Serena-Sharapova? Whiskers-Ham Contest officials? It’s an insult to the word and I’ll ask you politely to stop referring to this as a “rivalry”.
Thank you for your time, and in advance for updating your logs (word to Chaps). I’ll let Nick Richards take us out after his defining performance in a Kentucky uniform:
