The state of Indiana failed to put a team in the NCAA tournament (hahahahahaha) but the state’s capital is about to get one of March’s biggest games. Friday night, when the Cats and Cards meet in the tournament for the second time in three years, Indianapolis is going to be a war zone. The city that the NCAA headquarters calls home will open its arms to college basketball’s best rivalry, two of the most passionate fan bases in sports, and both sides, as you know, despise each other.
Hotels are booked up, tickets are going for Super Bowl prices, and bars are stocking up on booze and more booze for the flood of blue and red that is coming their way. It’s going to make for a crazy atmosphere all over downtown and in Lucas Oil Stadium, where the last two national champions will fight to the tournament death for a spot in the Elite Eight.
If you plan to make your way to Indianapolis to cheer on the Cats against our enemies, use the comments section of this post to speak up and share your plans with your fellow UK fans. And if you don’t plan to make your way to Indianapolis, do what you can to get there, or wish the rest of us luck as we spend a day or two in the mean streets of Indy, battling it out with Louisville fans.
Friday is going to be mayhem. I hope Indianapolis is ready.
*****
The Cats are practicing late at night this week in preparation for the late start.
Kentucky’s Sweet 16 game with Louisville is scheduled for 9:45 pm Friday night but we all know it won’t really tip off until after 10:00 pm. To prepare for the late start, John Calipari is holding later practices all this week with his team. The Cats practiced late Tuesday evening and they will travel on up to Indianapolis on Wednesday for a late practice up there. On Thursday they will practice for the fans at Lucas Oil at 1:00 pm (open to everyone) and then go somewhere else Thursday night to go over the gameplan one last time.
Calipari is going for the “three-tweak.”
On his call-in show Tuesday evening, Coach Cal told his listeners he will implement a third tweak this week in practice. The first two tweaks centered around what Kentucky does offensively, but this new tweak, he says, is based a little on what Louisville does. With that in mind, my guess is it has something to do with Louisville’s press. That, or making Luke Hancock throw up as many bricks as he did in the first game in Rupp Arena.
A third tweak?
Mind. Blown.
Read Cal’s “three-tweak” comment here.
Mitch McConnell didn’t have a great day.
The Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate slipped up by mistakenly using footage from Duke’s title celebration in a new campaign ad in Kentucky. McConnell’s team quickly jumped on the blunder and replaced the Blue Devil clip with a shot of Julius Randle. What they didn’t consider was the fact that using the image of a current NCAA student-athlete is a no-no. UK reported it immediately and, thankfully, avoided an NCAA violation because it was done without the knowledge or permission from Randle or the university.
McConnell’s office released this state Tuesday evening:
Earlier today, issues related to the use of NCAA images in a web video created by an outside vendor for our campaign were brought to our attention.
The video was taken down immediately after questions were raised. Since that time, we have received correspondence from the University of Kentucky, we have spoken with them, and the matter has been resolved.
To be clear, neither the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville nor any student-athlete was aware of any image used in this video, and actions have been taken with the vendor to ensure this never happens again.
We have also reached out to the University of Louisville to make sure they are aware of the situation and offered our full cooperation to clear up any misunderstanding.
It was our intention to honor our great Kentucky basketball traditions. Our campaign apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Way to go, Mitch. Way to go.
If you had to eat one Wildcat cake pop, which one do you pick?
Me, I’m going with John Calipari because his hair looks delicious.
The New York Times had some nice things to say about Coach Cal and Kentucky.
In a time when almost everything about Calipari out there is negative, the New York Times put the rest of the NCAA tournament field on notice because Cal is being apologetic about how he was late to figure his team out. The last time he did that, the author writes, “Calipari was incessantly saying how sorry he was for not getting more out of the freshman frontcourt wunderkind Anthony Davis. We know how that turned out. Kentucky won its first national championship in 14 years, and Davis was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player.”
Give it a read here.
John Wall’s new pregame intro in Washington is fantastic.
He’s much better at the plate than he is at the mound.
Check out KSR Funkhouser’s “Greatest Television Episode In The Last 30 Years” tournament.
The Funkhouser gang put a ton of work into its “Greatest Television Episode In The Last 30 Years” tournament and it’s lining up to be a battle for the title. You can check out the bracket below:
The first round of the madness kicked off Tuesday with the “I Want To Believe” Region and the voting is open now. Do your part in helping your favorite TV episode advance.
Oh my, DeMarcus.
R.I.P. Zaza Pachulia.
Pacers head coach Frank Vogel has a picture of Rupp Arena in his office.
If you look closely in Vogel’s new Dove commercial, you’ll see a framed panoramic print of Rupp Arena, where Vogel served as a student manager under Rick Pitino.
Vogel, now the head coach of the first place Pacers, also played for Pitino’s JV basketball team in Lexington. It’s good to see he remembers where his career began.
KSR will be at Fan Outfitters in Louisville tomorrow.
Matt Jones and Ryan Lemond will be at Fan Outfitters in the Summit for Wednesday morning’s show. Stop by if you’re in the area to hear the show live and meet the guys, and who knows, you might just walk away with two tickets to Friday’s game!
Louisville fans, you’re invited too, although you will be denied if you try to win the tickets.
Go Cats.