(This is going to be very long-winded, and at times will appear to be the ramblings of a confused child, but I promise, stay with me and I'll bring it all together by the end. I think.)
It's called "Rivalry Week" on ESPN for a reason. Not the least of those reasons is to drum up interest and ratings. Sometimes, it's traditional rivalries and other times, it's new found rivalries just because two teams have shifted into the same conference and are currently the top dogs.
Aside from all that, a rivalry should illicit some genuine feelings of hate, a very strong dislike at the very least. It should get your blood boiling and you should probably wear out a path in your living room floor in anticipation until the game begins.
It should make you puff out your chest, make idle threats, boast and brag, and you should definitely lose friends over it. It should make you take absurd measures, and make even more absurd statements and wagers.
It should, also, temporarily blind you from making any choices in your life that could be counted among the category known as a good one.
Kentucky, as the name and it's shade of blue elicits hate from all corners of the civilized world, has several of these so called 'rivals'. In order for a rivalry to be just that, it helps if there is no clear-cut favorite, both teams should enjoy more than moderate levels of success against one another. They should be equals in essence, as to there would be no reason to rival one another if there was no advantage over the other to be gained. It has to matter.
Kentucky fans will bicker among each other, as to who is our biggest rival. Long time fans born into the most un-civil of wars, will hands down tell you that Louisville is and always will be the target of unsolicited hate and venom. That's who the Cats sharpen their claws the most for. They will recite reasons as to why, as if they had been taught in elementary school, maybe even Sunday school, as to why you can NEVER have any other emotion than hatred towards those damn, dirty birds.
Add to all those years of being conditioned to hate, the biggest act of deception and treason since Judas: Rick Pitino becoming their head coach. It was the ultimate act of betrayal.
If there was any question as to who the cannons of hate should be fired upon, it was emphatically answered unquestionably to be Louisville. Any feelings and thoughts that we may have had about directing that much hatred towards Louisville may have not been warranted as much as we thought, swiftly went away at a velocity that would break the sound barrier.
Without a doubt, Kentucky and Louisville is one of the most emotionally-charged and invested rivalries in all the land. It may even be the best. I am biased, of course, but it has a strong case to be made in it's name to be such.
Others will rattle off such standard bearers like Duke, Tennessee, Indiana, and Carolina(The Northern one). Some use location as a barometer in such affairs, and cling to the notion that Louisville is just a minor inconvenience as they fall well short of the glory that is Big Blue Nation, and don't deserve to be placed on a level that would suggest we take them seriously. Using the logistical line of thinking, sometimes you will even get an Ohio State thrown into the mix.
However, in doing so, they may very well be doing what they say we already do with Louisville, and that is make them more significant than they deserve. Tennessee for no reason whatsoever, should ever be considered our biggest rival. They own us in football, we return the favor in basketball. Aside from a few good runs here and there, Tennessee is not a program that deserves to be held in such esteem. Some folks, though, give them that recognition. It is very misguided. They use the logic that it's a conference rival and we play them twice. Every season. That right there should cheapen the value of that claim. Leave the Chris Lofton thing out of this, and you see this little skirmish for what it is, and always has been on the hardwood. Nothing more than two games a season at least. Unfortunately, we have some folks in Southeastern Kentucky who actually root for those football Vols. It's probably due to all that Mountain Dew consumption,
Everybody hates Duke. That's kind of a generic rival, because nobody likes those snobbish, flopping, every call getting Blue Devils. We don't play them with a degree a regularity that would warrant such strong hatred year in and year out. I mean 1992 still hurts, but we have already exorcised that demon. Don't get me wrong, I am in the number that HATES DUKE. However, Duke is actually a worthy rival. They have the pedigree needed to be a rival of ours. The same argument would be made for Kansas, but only on the basis of pedigree, not based on regularity and familiarity. Usually, aside from our new deal with that Champions Classic event, neither of those programs factor into our season in any way. More often than not when we do meet, it's regarded as a big win, or good loss. Games against either are a toss up.
And UCLA hasn't been UCLA for years. They had flashes of a national power a few times, but nothing that was proven to be sustainable.
UNC we do play, in most years, with regularity. They too, have the pedigree necessary to be at our table. However, besides the pissing contest that will ensue between the two varying shades of blue over who is more tradition rich, as happens with Kansas and UCLA too, there just isn't that hatred there. It's more looked at as a measuring stick for the season it takes place, not the worth of the program as a whole. Besides, Carolina is the most bandwagon supported team. When in doubt, root for the Tar Heels. If you listen to rap, root for the Tarheels. if you live in Kenova, root for the Tarheels. You get the picture.
Indiana has it all. They have pedigree. They have Bobby Knight. They have proximity, and they have uppity, moronic fans. They mirror our own state in the fever they display for everything basketball. However, despite the success they are having now, last year's buzzer-beating floor rushing frenzy in Bloomington, and Bobby Knight still drawing whisky-sour laced breaths, Indiana ran through a rough patch of being a non-factor. Even in years when we weren't the most Kentucky-like of programs. Like Louisville and UNC, traditionally we met with those very Hoosiers every season. The opportunity to remember how bad we hated them was there every season.
However, Indiana is a complete hate, much like the all encompassing hate that comes with the name Louisville. It's just there. It manifested all those years ago, and it stays with us.
Notre Dame for whatever reason is not hated enough by our fan base. Actually, I know the answer to that question posed. That is the fact that some of our very own fans claim allegiance to Notre Dame football. To be fair, it is hard to root for our football Cats at times, like a decade at a time, but still, to jump on that Golden Domed-train and ride it in the fall perplexes me. However, to some it comes down to the now, and not the traditionally accepted. Notre Dame, is more or less viewed as a kid on your block that you don't hang out with much anymore, you remember playing ball in the yard with em', but now you don't mind if they get the occasional win over you. You don't have a strong feeling for them because you think they are pretty good at football and get a boner for their gold football helmet.
I get Notre Dame football and all that. I get that parallels can be drawn between Notre Dame football and Kentucky basketball. I don't draw them, but I get that some do and that it can be done. I don't agree with it. I really wish more folks would remember that we hate Notre Dame. I was hoping that floor rushing display in South Bend this season would jog their memories.
However the Kentucky fans abandoning our less than stellar football program argument can also be made for those Cats who can often be heard chanting 'Roll Tide regardless if it is done out of SEC camaraderie or not. I am guilty of being an SEC homer, to me though, it's no different than pulling for the National League in the All Star Game of the World Series. However, there are those who actually call themselves 'Bama football fans, and Kentucky basketball fans. It's one thing to root for the SEC's dominance just for the fact that is our geographic region and it's to whom we belong. It's a whole other thing to claim loyalty to one particular SEC team in different sports. Besides, it's fun being an SEC loyalist because it makes Ohio State fans go into fits.
Now, we have Florida. Florida is very relevant to the college basketball scene these days, and have been since winning back to back titles years back. They, like the rest of the SEC, despise us and wish to unseat us from our perch like a band of X-Wing pilots taking down the Death Star. Then you have that whole Billy Donovan thing. You have that period of time when Florida was the incumbent of the Southeast, and would make their snide remarks and trash talk. They had Teddy Dupay and Joakim Noah. They had Corey Brewer who wanted to be a Wildcat but somebody told him that he wasn't quite Kentucky material. He let Kentucky know each and every time out that he was indeed good enough. And hell's far, they have Joakim Noah... and that kid that looked like Beavis and douchebags in headbands.
Florida is worthy of hating. I am not going to deny that one little bit. More often than not, they are who we are staring at as our prime competition in SEC play these days. However, it wasn't always that way. Florida had been an afterthought in the SEC for years, much like the Cats were on the gridiron. They just were not relevant to us for so many years, not even that much when Lon Krueger actually made people aware that there was a basketball team in Gainesville. Then, Billy Donovan started winning, a lot. At first it was cute. Look, Rick Pitino's prodigy is doing good. I hope he keeps it up. I hope he establishes himself. After all, it makes for a better league to have another strong team, and we all know he is just being groomed to be our coach one day, when he is proven and ready for the job. Well, that day never came. And you know what, Florida kept winning. Florida kept succeeding, and at times it was at our expense. We, shamefully, at times even coveted what they had: Donovan. We felt like he was supposed to be ours. However, he would spurn our advances and close the door on the chance of him being in Lexington.
In recent years, Florida is our biggest conference rival, there is no doubt about that. To have a program that is not that far removed from back to back national titles in our own league, and being as relevant as they are on the scene currently, hands down the Gators are SEC Public Enemy #1. No matter how many water bottles and prank phone calls Mississippi State throws or makes, no matter how many thunder-level douchebags Ole Miss has making claims of what they are going to do against us, no matter how many absurd scoring nights A&M may leave Rupp having, and no matter how ridiculous Memorial Gymnasium gets, they will not surpass Florida as the object of our in-conference hatred.
Kudos to Florida though. They have become relevant enough to be our conference rival. Overall, through the test of time, they are still lacking in that regard. The long-term success just isn't there. Traditions and allegiances run generations deep in Kentucky, and it's just going to be hard for some to allow Florida to take any level of dislike away from the likes of Indiana, Louisville, or even Duke. But right now, and for the last 15 years or so, they most certainly have our attention, if not hatred.
Will it last? Who knows. With Florida's non-traditional past as a basketball power, they could very well fall from their current standing among the national powers. They could become a footnote in the annals of history the likes of a Wyoming or San Francisco. In 50 years, folks could look at one another and ask, 'why did they care about Florida that much?'
I'm not going to say that Florida is our biggest rival, nor do I think that I will ever be of that impression. I certainly think Florida is douche-infested. I hate Florida, that is undeniable. However, if you ask me to circle who our biggest rival is, I won't be making the mark around Florida. I won't pencil in Duke. I won't wrap my sharpie around the Hoosiers, either.
I know what you're thinking, he's one of those who just hates Louisville because he's been told his whole life to do so. That is not the case at all. I do hate Louisville probably more than someone could think was humanly possible. It's probably not even healthy the degrees in which my Louisville hatred radiates through my soul. It's how I stay warm in the winter.
Perhaps a bigger shocker though, is that I am not going to say Louisville is who I think our biggest rival is. It has nothing to do with not even considering them a worthy adversary. It has nothing to do with not finding them relevant in any way. Like I have made perfectly clear, I hate them.
So who do I consider our biggest rival? if not any of the above mentioned teams, then who?
It's simple really. I'd check the box beside the choice of "all of the above".
Everyone, whether they are worthy of the distinction or not, is who I consider our biggest rival. Anybody who isn't us. It's us or them. It's us against the world.
Because I Bleed Blue.
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