On the other hand, I have spent my life reading the Louisville newspapers, and I am unable to forgive the Louisville Courier-Journal for the decades that it has spent trashing UK's basketball program in the apparent hope that by pulling down UK, it would help U of L. I have always found this incredibly annoying. In the first place, the whole strategy is flawed; U of L usually does better when UK is doing well. Since 1972, U of L has been to the Elite Eight 11 times. UK also reached the Elite Eight in seven of those seasons -- and in all seven, either UK or U of L reached the Final Four. (The years were 1972, 1975, 1983, 1986, 1997, 2005, and 2012 -- and you can see that the Cardinals are 6-1 in Elite Eight games when UK is also in the Elite Eight.) In the second place, Louisville fans are not the only people who live in Kentucky, and I always thought that Kentucky's biggest newspaper should be large enough to accommodate the most popular sports team in the Commonwealth.
So to me, the Louisville fans (as represented by the C-J) always seemed to be the aggressors in this rivalry. They're the ones who were so adamant about playing in the first place; they're the ones who hired Pitino; they're the ones who always turn up on other teams' message boards to trash the Cats. But I understand that Louisville fans don't think they get enough respect from UK fans -- that we are too "arrogant" to give their program its due. And I admit that we have teased the Cardinals from time to time here on the Heath Post -- all those references to the Metro Seven, for example -- so let's talk seriously about Louisville basketball.
For me, the most important thing about Louisville basketball is how great the Cardinals were from 1972 to 1986. Those were Denny Crum's first 15 seasons, and in those years U of L went to the Final Four six times (1972, 1975, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1986) and won two National Titles (1980, 1986). With the possible exception of Indiana (which won National Titles in 1976, 1981, and 1987), Louisville had the best program in college basketball during that time frame. On the whole, I really liked those Louisville teams. I like to talk about the Metro Seven because it makes me happy to remember the Cardinal teams that played in it. Crum was John Wooden's greatest disciple, and his teams played with a tenacity and flair that was wonderful to watch. Also, they didn't choke: the old U of L teams were absolutely deadly in the tournament, and were almost never upset.
But it wasn't enough for the U of L fans and their supporters at the C-J. It wasn't enough to go to the Final Four. It wasn't enough to win the National Championship. They wanted to beat UK. That was what mattered to them. And they whined and moaned and complained until the NCAA paired the teams in the same region, which is why they met in the 1983 Elite Eight. I didn't want this game, for the simple reason that I was absolutely certain that Denny Crum was a better coach than Joe Hall, and that the Cats (who were eliminated from the Tournament by UAB in 1981 and by MTSU in 1982) were no match for the Cardinals. I honestly figured that U of L would win by about 20.
And they did win, but not by 20. In fact, UK (who was the lower seed in that game) took the favored Cardinals to overtime before finally fading. And then the next year, UK beat the Cardinals twice -- in the regular season and the NCAA Tournament. From then on, I felt differently about Louisville. I still liked them. I still respected Crum and his players, and I enjoyed watching their games. But the mystique was gone. For Louisville, one of the nice things about not playing Kentucky for so long was that they hadn't actually lost to the Cats since 1951. Once Joe Hall showed that Kentucky could beat Louisville, the dynamics of the relationship started to change.
You couldn't tell for awhile, of course, because Eddie Sutton spent the next few years in an apparent effort to destroy UK basketball once and for all. But after the Cats got a new coach, and started winning again, their victories over Louisville became increasingly common. Louisville did get a lot out of the UK game -- I don't think Pitino would have come there if it hadn't been for the chance to play UK, and they get a huge amount of publicity from the game each year. And on the whole, UK would probably be better off with a home-and-home against a program like Kansas. Looking back now, however, I can see that I was wrong to think that UK got nothing from the game. By beating U of L most of the time, UK has been able to give itself a critical recruiting edge that Joe Hall didn't have back in the 1970's and early 1980's. Back then, Crum could honestly tell recruits that his program was better than UK. Except a brief period after 2005, that really hasn't been true for much of the last 20 years.
Of course, U of L has its chance for revenge on Saturday. And they may get it. I think Rick Pitino is one of the greatest coaches ever, and I know how hard it is to beat him twice in the same season. But it would be a mistake, I think, to pretend that Louisville has nothing to lose on Saturday. No program -- not even a great one like Louisville -- gets so many shots at the Final Four that it can afford to take one for granted. For once, Louisville and Kentucky are not just playing for bragging rights, but for something a whole lot bigger. Usually, if U of L loses to Kentucky, its fans can look forward to the rest of the season. Not this time. Plus, all the U of L fans who are my age -- and who have been boasting about that 1983 win for 29 years -- might finally lose those old bragging rights, and folks like me could finally put the 1983 game behind us.
So both sides have a lot at stake. And I think it will be a great, great game.
About "This Is It," ...
ReplyDeleteI still think of that song every year during the NCAA Tournament. And I think of the tournament every time I hear that song.
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