Dragons like Chicken, Bears eat Volunteers...

Louisville, that lil' bastard child brother. Now, to be fair, the Ville has looked solid this season so far. I was more than impressed with their win over UNLV(sans Stacey Augmon). And, to their credit, the dirty birds have flown in under the radar and managed to remain unbeaten on the season. Take into consideration, though, in christening the new YUM! Center, the Cards have yet to play a single game on the road, so their unbeaten role is somewhat misleading, but they have been rolling none the less. Until yesterday. The Bruiser Flint led Drexel Dragons came into the house of the Colonel, and they wanted some Kentucky Fried Bird. Yup, this is the same Drexel of 2000 fame. Burn.

The telling point in this game was shooting. Drexel came into YUM! and shot the lights out of the place. Well, compared to Louisville they did. Drexel pulled it together and shot about 41% from the field in the second half. Louisville shot an abysmal 29%. At Home. Yikes.

Gerald Colds had the fever for Drexel, scoring 20 and adding 5 rebounds. Preston and Peyton added 13 a piece for the Cards.

And, according to the University of Louisville, Rick Pitino's supposed agreement to coach Puerto Rico maybe was a bit hasty in it's announcing.

Oakland. But not the RAYYYYYDUUUHS. Not even the A's. Hell, they are not even from California. They are from Michigan. They are the Grizzlies. And they came south and snacked on some Volunteer.

In the not an AFC battle college hoops contest, Another Kentucky rival and current unbeaten, Tennessee, would host a team who should have rolled over for them. Oakland, however, has other things in mind for the season. They have played Purdue and Illinois already, and added Michigan State to that. They almost beat the Spartans. Free throws would be their undoing in that one as they lost by one. One point to Michigan State. Not a bad resume so far. So, naturally, they face a top 10 Vols team with no fear. They are not running from anybody. Oakland rode the tails of Keith Benson who had 26 and 10, to muscle past the Vols, the #7 Vols, 89-82 in Knoxville.

What does this all mean? Well, It just exposes Louisville as the team that Pitino said they really were as opposed to the team that the Media was saying they were. Ricky P was right, and they can move forward from here.

Tennessee just got caught in the wrong place. Oakland has been building towards this win. Playing and learning against top 25 programs, then almost beating the best of the 3 they had played, well it all added up to knocking off a top team, unfortunately, that team was the Vols.

Oakland could make some tournament noise. I don't think Drexel will though.

Tough week for Louisville. Roads are bad. Drexel came and stole the bucket of chicken, and Akron beat the Cards in the finals of the College Cup National Soccer Tournament.