Ashton Hagans celebrated last year when UK beat Louisville. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky’s worst start in 74 years going into Saturday’s game at Louisville has not made the Cats any less of a target for opponents.
“People are seeing blood in the water and you’re at Kentucky. This is their chance,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said Thursday. “And I’m not talking specifically about Louisville. I’m talking about every team in our league.
“‘This is our chance to smash these dudes.’ And so, they’ve got to understand these teams are coming. We’re not going to face a team that doesn’t play hard or plays poorly. They’re not going to. I don’t expect that Saturday. I expect Louisville to play well. I expect it.
“What I’m hoping is we play better. And if we’re playing better and we see it and we compete, we’ll live with the results. I’m feeling like, again, there are things I’ve got to do to help these guys get over the hump, and I’m doing everything I can right now.”
The UK-Louisville rivalry was full of intensity when Rick Pitino was coaching the Cards. It dropped off a bit after Pitino left but summer exchanges between Calipari and Louisville coach Chris Mack have put the spice back in the Battle of the Bluegrass.
“It’s the Louisville game. Whether it’s Rick or Chris, it doesn’t matter,” Calipari said.
Then the UK coach couldn’t help throwing a playful jab Louisville’s way after the scheduling controversy last summer.
“And by the way, I offered to postpone the game if they wanted to, and for some reason they told me, ‘No, they’re good, they’ll go.’ I said, ‘But you’re not going to have fans. Do you still really want to play this.’ And they said, ‘Oh yeah, we want to go.’ So, I guess we’re OK now,” Calipari said.
Calipari insisted ESPN moved the game from ESPN2 to ESPN to showcase the rivalry nationally.
“We know they’re going to come in and fight. They do a great job. They’ve got big guys. They’ve got guards. They’re playing pack line (defense). They’re playing through (Carlik) Jones. (David) Johnson is playing well. They’re rebounding the ball well. They fight. They absolutely try to take 15 charges a game. We’re avoiding charges right now,” Calipari said.
“It’s all stuff we’ve been working on but there’s not been carryover into games. Theirs has. They’ve got a young team too. They’ve got inexperience like we do. So, they’ve played better than we have. No question about it. They’ve been more specific in how they’re playing, mostly through Jones and putting him in pick-and-rolls and doing stuff with him.
“But everybody on that team has accepted their role. We’re still trying to figure out who is who right now.”
This will be UK freshman Lance Ware’s first UK-Louisville game. He says not to worry about players not knowing the meaning of the game to fans.
“Just personally, as I know this team, I know that we’re all very competitive and that we all want to win so much. I think that we’re just going to go out there and give it our all and just leave everything on the court and continue to get better,” Ware said.
“Obviously, every game that we go out there we want to win. But we just want to continue getting better and stay on the same path. Continue to work and just get better every day in practice. Hopefully stuff that we’ve been working on in practice translates over into the games.”
