By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
Three lopsided wins over high school team dropouts and a so-so victory over an oldtimers squad that huffed and puffed up and down the floor do not a season make, much less an undefeated trip to another NCAA championship.
Despite outlandish predictions and armchair observations from fans on call-in shows and social media, that is the reality of last week’s trip to the Bahamas for Coach John Calipari and the Kentucky men’s basketball team.
Frankly, I was terribly disappointed that there apparently was no opportunity for the new Cats to challenge the Little Sisters of the Poor or Molly Putts Boarding School.
It was a junket, no more, no less. A week of sun and surf for the coaches, players, sportswriters, and others in the Big Blue entourage. The so-called basketball games in a poorly lighted cracker box of a gym were never worth watching, even on the over-rated SEC Network. For me, the new collection of world-class individual players raises more questions about why Coach Cal continues to recruit more star players than he can keep happy. Playing time and basketball-sized egos don’t seem to be compatible, at least in Lexington.But the worst development in UK basketball was that dumb statement Coach Calipari made about basketball being more important to UK than football or something to that effect. He has since tried to walk back that comment, but it has created a firestorm in the ranks of those UK faithful who love both sports.UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart tried to downplay the significance of the growing dispute but that didn’t keep the media from drawing parallels to the feud between Adolph Rupp and Paul (Bear) Bryant in the 1950’s.Bryant built a football dynasty at Alabama. He loved to tell how he won a national championship at UK and received a gold watch but Rupp won a national title for the Wildcats and was given a Cadillac.
Keith Kappes can be reached at keithkappes@gmail.com
Well personally, I think what cal said was true. I know that football makes more money for the university and all that due to a variety of reasons but come on….it’s kinda insulting too hear people even give pushback on what cal said. I guess that’s why ky has the 2nd smallest stadium in the sec and even downsized a few yrs back from 73000 to around 61000 cuz we love football so much!? Look, I’ve always been a fan of both football and basketball and stoops has done an incredible job but we’ve basically been a bottom feeder in the sec ever since Bryant left while our basketball program has the richest tradition of anyone…we take a back seat too absolutely no one in bball. Then you throw in Louisville’s basketball rich tradition and even wku has tons of tradition and is in the top 20 of all time wins in college basketball!! It’s like saying Alabama or Michigan is a basketball school or state after they’ve had a good 5-7 year stretch in bball. Sorry at least for me, having a couple 10 win seasons and being ranked in the preseason cfb polls for the first time since I was in diapers (1978) doesn’t suddenly cancel out all the history, nothing but success, winning, titles, winningest program in bball (was before this past March at least) that has been Kentucky basketball (along with wku and Louisville too)! That’s insane to me!? I absolutely believe that there are only 3 states that you can say are more basketball than football (and their obvious) – Kentucky, Indiana and north Carolina.