U of L Preview

In the early 1800s, there were really only two ways to get to Kentucky. Most of the Southerners who settled Kentucky came through the mountains, either by edging their way over valley by valley from Virginia, or by going up through the Cumberland Gap and looking for the best available land. But if you were coming from the North, it made a lot more sense to leave from Pittsburgh and sail down the Ohio River. River settlers tended to stop at one of two places: in Northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati, and at Louisville, near the falls of the Ohio. And, to this day, Louisville and Northern Kentucky both feel like little outposts of Ohio that have wandered into Kentucky. Most of Kentucky tends to be rural, and Anglo, and Protestant -- but Louisville is much more urban, German, and Catholic.

From the perspective of the modern-day East Coast -- where the term WASP covers you whether your ancestors came from England or Germany -- these distinctions may not seem particularly important. No doubt the typical New Yorker would see little difference between Louisville and Lexington. But the dividing line between the urbane Germans of the Midwest and the crackers of the South is one of the most important lines in American history -- as Abraham Lincoln could attest. So it is not surprising that the relationship between Louisville and Kentucky has always been much more fractious than, say, the relationship between Nashville and the rest of Tennessee.

All of which is as good an explanation as I can find for the venom and rage that Louisville brings to their basketball games with UK. You will wait in vain for the Nashville Tennessean to attack UT and its fans, but the Courier-Journal has been at war with UK and its fans for as long as I can remember. And while schools like UNC and NC State generally work together -- despite their rivalry on the sports field -- U of L's officials never miss the opportunity to bash UK for one reason or another.

Even under normal circumstances, U of L fans would be happy if UK were replaced by a hot, smoking crater. But the events of the last two years have made Card fans even angrier than usual. Two years ago, U of L finally seemed to have pulled definitively ahead of UK on the basketball court. The Cards had UK's old coach, they had a number-1 seed in the NCAA tournament, and they had back-to-back wins over the Big Blue. UK had Billy Gillespie. But the tide quickly turned. U of L crashed out in the Elite Eight to Michigan State, and staggered to a 20-13 record last year. UK sacked Gillespie, hired Coach Calipari, and have gone 45-5 since. Now UK is, once again, ahead of the Cardinals in the polls (UK is number 11, U of L number 22) and on the recruiting trail. Plus, of course, the Wildcats thumped the Cardinals 71-62 last year.

All of which means that Cardinal fans need this game badly. They have a new gym, they have an 11-1 record, and they have the Wildcats at home. If they can't win tomorrow, they will have to wait two years before UK comes back. And given the way Kentucky has been playing, those could be two very long years for Cardinal fans.

But Cardinal fans are not the only ones who need this game. Rick Pitino has a record of only 4-5 against his former team, and even though he has had the satisfaction of running off two different coaches at UK, he has no intention of suffering a string of defeats to Coach Calipari. Furthermore, Pitino has many strengths as a coach, but I've always thought he was particularly good at preparing his guys for a specific game -- a fact that explains his success in most rivalry games and in conference tournaments. His strategy against UK tomorrow will be masterful, and I for one am very curious to see what Pitino considers UK's strengths and weaknesses to be.

Now, as a general matter, famous teams and coaches that have to win usually do win, especially at home. In that sense, this game is very similar to this year's UNC game, where Roy Williams was trying to rally the troops after some embarrassing defeats. My guess is that this game will show a similar result. UK is a good team, and by the end of the year they could be a great team, but I don't think they are likely to knock off a team as good as Louisville and as desperate as Louisville on Louisville's home floor. Ken Pomeroy gives U of L at 60 percent chance of victory tomorrow, with a projected score of 74-71, and that seems about right to me. If UK gets in huge foul trouble -- like it did against UConn -- or if the young Cats can't hang onto the ball against U of L's press, the score could get much worse.

What about UK's 40 percent chance of victory? How could UK win? I think their best chance of victory would be to follow the pattern we saw against Notre Dame and Washington -- survive the initial wave, and then slowly strangle the life out of Louisville with defense. It is very unlikely that Knight, Jones, and Lamb will all shoot well on the road tomorrow -- the Cats will probably go something like 5-21 from three-point range and miss a bunch of free throws, as is their usual pattern in big road games. But they do have a good defense -- UConn and UNC are the only teams to score more than 70 points against them all year. They only gave up 58 points to Notre Dame, and only 67 points to Washington. If the Cats can hold Louisville below 70 points, they will have a very good chance to win.

And here's where I think the home court will make a huge difference. Notre Dame and Washington were both playing UK away from home, and their three-point shots were not on target. But Louisville has been playing in its new gym for weeks, and my guess is that they will shoot much better.

One final point: this is normally a really ugly game, with lots of fouls and bad humor on both sides. Pitino will certainly seek to steer this year's matchup in such a direction, just as he did last year. So far, UK's young players have not shown the ruthlessness necessary to survive in such an environment. And my guess is they will be somewhat shaken by U of L's tactics -- there are no Cousinses on this team. But they probably need a game like this to get them ready for what they will see in Knoxville, Gainesville, and other places along the way.

Final Prediction: Louisville 74, Kentucky 68