Here comes my post game therapy session where I talk to myself until the tears dry up and I try but ultimately fail to make myself feel better.
So......like I said, fuck Duke.
I've learned my lesson over the past ten years with Coach Cal.
1. Never expect much early on. Period.
2. Expect to lose to tougher, more physical teams.
3. Turn off ESPN and delete all social media accounts.
There are a LOT of dumb UK fans out there. This is mainly because I'd say, 75% of them at least, aren't actual SPORTS fans. In general they think sports are dumb except for UK basketball. None of them understand the process of coaching or even attempt to grasp what it means to transform a team of babies in November to a Final Four team in March. And that's what Cal has done basically every single year. Nevertheless, these hicks/sports lightweights get on Facebook and call for the firing of our Hall of Fame coach. I can only imagine what they are saying now.
I'm not really surprised by this loss or the margin of defeat. To be honest, I don't think Cal was either. He does big games like this despite being the exact opposite of a "big game" coach. Yeah, of course he would have taken the win, but really he's looking at this as a learning experience akin to pushing a child into the deep end of the swimming pool. You think he's not seen the tapes of Zion? He knows the intensity of that atmosphere too. His thinking is, throw them in and hope for the best, but if we lose at least we will have the experience of disappointment and defeat.
Coach K, on the other hand, feeds on environments like the one last night. You can't help but admire and get caught up in the impressiveness of it. He's cutthroat. That's all well and good right now, but can he get his kids to show up like that when they have to go play at Eastern Michigan or San Diego State? What about during games when the refs are actually calling fouls? If you know anything about college basketball, you know the refs let that shit go in big time ratings games like last night. What about on nights they don't? What happens if you run into a team full of grown men (upperclassmen) who will take the charge instead of moving out of the way? That's not as likely in the ACC, but it will happen at some point.
Bottom line, Kentucky was a deer in the headlights. Their shots weren't falling. They got outplayed. Cal got out coached (for now). Yeah I wanted them to beat Duke. I hate Duke. But what I care most about is the growth of the team over the next 5 months and how we perform when it matters. If anyone is still reading this...remember Arizona last year? Remember when Deandre Ayton was the be all and end all of college basketball players? Arizona was going to take the world by storm, a final four shoo-in? I remember seeing a lot of big A's in the centers of brackets. How did that turn out?
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
We're starting unranked, they are #17, but it's at their place. Do we have a chance? HELL YEAH!! Can we win? HELL YEAH!! Will we win? Um....don't forget to vote tomorrow!
