Mark Pope with Rick Pitino at a UK practice earlier this season. (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky coach Mark Pope knows other than Travis Perry and Trent Noah, two former Kentucky high school stars, that no player on his roster can fully understand the UK-Louisville rivalry going into Saturday night’s game in Rupp Arena.
“None of them were raised with living through this Kentucky-Louisville vibe. In that sense, it’s new to them, but my guys will be ready. They care so much and they love prepping,” Pope said earlier this week on his radio show.
Pope obviously didn’t know anything about the rivalry either when he transferred from Washington to play for coach Rick Pitino at UK about 30 years ago. The coach quickly learned what it meant.
“I don’t remember a lot about the games (against Louisville). I just remember being in Rupp and just feeling the energy in the gym,” Pope said. “We had great matchups, that was when Samaki Walker was roaming around in the Cardinal red. They were really, really fun games, just with a ton of energy.
“But pretty much, I’ve tried to black out all of the things that we endured with coach P (Pitino) and I’m saying that in the most loving way possible, please understand that.”
Pitino did once explain to Pope what the UK-Louisville game meant to long-time Kentucky basketball equipment manager Bill Keightley — the original Mr. Wildcat.
“The great Bill Keightley — one of one, the best ever. He welcomed coach Pitino here and was one of coach P’s trusted allies from day one. I don’t know if it was five, six, seven games into the season, but they had a routine where when Coach sent the players out for the last time before a game, Bill Keightley would make sure Coach had all he needed and they’d walk out on the floor together,” Pope said.
“This is game five, six, seven, eight into the season and coach P sends the team out, but there’s no Bill Keightley. ‘Where is Bill Keightley?’ Coach is walking around the locker room, says, ‘We’ve got to go!’ He goes down the hall, finally goes to the showers and sees the great Wildcat Bill just sitting on the floor.
“He’s dressed in his suit, sitting on the floor. Tears streaming down his face with an open bottle of bourbon in his arms, just feeling the stress and pressure of this Kentucky-Louisville game. That’s when coach Pitino was like, ‘This is different. This just means more.’”
Pope’s team will get to experience that same realization Saturday because until a player has been part of the UK-Louisville rivalry, there’s really no way to fully appreciate it.
5 Responses
The undeniable value of KY HS players being a key in every UK Championship is history with Titles. Darius was the most recent.
Somehow, I hope Pope can get these KY guys ready & able to get 12 to 15 minutes per game as we get into January games. It is a key ingredient to #9 !!!
I love our Kentucky kids, but the only way Noah or Perry get over 5-6 minutes a game is if Butler(& Kriisa) is out for an extended period of time. It is just not their time right now. Maybe by their junior and senior years they will crack the 10-15 minute a game mark. Pope will continue to recruit elite talent and portal players, which will always make it difficult for them to get extended minutes. I think they can both have similar roles as Willis and Hawkins had when they played.
If anyone needs to be reminded of Lousyville being a MUST win, they don’t need to be on the team.
AMEN guys—when u are Big Blue, this is the biggest day of the year–EVERY YEAR. I learned from my father at a very early age about this rivalry–and believe me when I say my father was no different than Mr Wildcat about the UK/LOU series. I was only 3 yrs old when KY lost the original Dream Game in the Mideast Regional Final in 1983—but the first memory I have of this series came that following December in the first regular season matchup between the two teams in the modern era. My father had a T-shirt with the Wildcat stomping on the Cardinal bird that read Cats Crush Cards 65-44. And also the Sports Illustrated from DEC 1983 with Sam "Bam" Bowie on the cover blocking one of his about ten shots in that game with the headline Cats Slam Cards In Dream Game Rematch. And the 65-44 final doesn’t even do justice to what that game was really like –it was more like a 30-pt game or even more–I think LOU got off to a hot start early maybe and it was close midway thru the first half, but from there Bowie, Turpin, Master, and Co took over–and just defensively shut them down. A similar thing happened just 3 years later in the DEC 1986 Dream Game–and this game I remember much more vividly, because I was a little older by then, and I still remember watching that game with my Dad as if it was yesterday. And we had a T-shirt with the score on it for this one too: UK 85 UofL 51. On national TV, and in Freedom Hall–and that’s what made it even better. Most dominating performance I have ever seen in this series still to this day. Rex Chapman introduced himself to college bball that day with 30 pts and bombed 3 after 3, and dunked all over Kenny Payne and Pervis Ellison in their house. UofL was the defending national champion that season, and had most of their players back from that previous year’s team. That’s my favorite game from the UK/UofK series. And I have other favorites from this series as well–and it’s like there are so many, because there have been so many blowouts and so many memorable wins. Even though it wasn’t necessarly the greatest KY team ever, I have to put the 3 free throws from Patrick Sparks in DEC 2004 very high on this list of favorite UK/LOU games. That’s an all-timer. And again, in Freedom Hall in front of all their fans. Came from 16 down at halftime–Sparks being the hero–but I also remember a guy named Rondo having alot to do with that comeback, and an all-too forgotten KY native and fan favorite who etched his name in the record book too: RAVI MOSS!! He hit a 3 from the right corner with like less than 2 mins left to cut the deficit from 4 to 1. I remember exactly where I was for that game–i was at my uncle’s house with he and my Dad and a couple of our friends, and we were all absolutely hammered, and I just remember my uncle going absolutely ballistic when Ravi hit that 3!!! I remember him screaming "I LOVE U, RAVI!!!" Too funny. I also vividly remember, after that foul call was made on Sparks’s shot, and they had finished reviewing the call, as Sparks was stepping up to the line to get ready to take them, my uncle just calmly and bluntly said "he’s gonna hit all 3 of em"—- I DIED LAUGHING!!!! I honestly thought he would miss one of them, and he actually only needed two of them for us to win—but it was one of those things that was meant to be: there was no doubt that he was hitting all 3 of them that day! That was such a memorable game and memorable win, and especially because of the way that it ended. Patrick Sparks will always forever be rememebered for that game. I also have to put the 2012 Final Four victory over LOU high on the list just because a national championship was on the line, and they stood in the way of that, and we all knew that championship was ours to win. So while not the prettiest game every played, it made for one of the most nerve-wracking games to wait on to get here and to live thru, thats for sure! And it was one of the biggest wins for KY in this series, if not the biggest, because it was in the Final Four. And it was so sweet at the time to take down Pitino in the Final Four as well. That game, and the 1996 Final Four game against UMASS, are the two most nerve-wracking and most highly anticipated games, just for me personally, of my lifetime. It’s because of what was on the line and the circumstances for those KY teams and the players/coaches that were involved. It’s ironic too because in each of those games it was CAL vs Pitino. In ’96 we wanted so badly for Rick to take down CAL, and he did, then in 2012, we wanted CAL to take down Rick, which he did. Crazy stuff. Other top UK/UofL games for me: the Unforgettables bombing 3s in Rupp in 1991 for a 103-89 win, Mashburn and Travis Ford turning Freedom Hall into THREE-dom Hall, and Roderick Rhodes dunking all over it in DEC 1992: 88-68. The CATS have actually played alot of their better games in this series at UofL’s house. Another Freedom Hall bombing: 74-54 in1997 with the Air Pair: Derek Anderson and Ron Mercer. I was in Rupp in DEC 1999 for Tayshaun Prince and Co destroying the CARDS 76-46 in a classic Tubby defensive masterpiece–holding LOU to 3-27 FG shooting in the second half! I was also there for Rick’s first return to Rupp as the LOU coach in DEC 2001 when he came out of the home team’s end of the locker room all just to try to throw off the crowd. Prince and Bogans put on another beatdown in that one, and the CATS played one of their better games of that season that day: 82-62. Of course, the first meeting between CAL and Rick in this series was memorable when Cousins and SLOP-shire got into it and Bledsoe talking all that sh**–I wasn’t there for that one, but the vibe and energy in Rupp for that game was something rare. U could feel that just watching it on TV. I tell u one that really gets forgotten in this series is the first meeting between these teams played in the YUM CENTER–which was the very next season after CAL and Rick’s first meeting. CAL’s second season with Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones, Darius Miller, Josh Harrellson, DeAndre Liggins, Doron Lamb—without a doubt, the most forgotten team of the CAL era–a team that took awhile to get going, but when they did, they did it at the right time and were so much fun to watch! And they made a tournament run that year to the Final Four that was so memorable, and it’s a damn shame they didn’t get a chance to play for the championship. But this team I think first found itself when playing the first game between UK and UofL in the YUM CENTER–they absolutely destroyed LOU in a performance and a win that NOBODY saw coming. It was remembered as the "JORTS" game, when he went off for like 26 pts and 12 rebounds–him and TJones just absolutely destroyed LOU inside. And found their identity that would carry them all the way thru their tournament run. They turned a struggle of an SEC season into a dominating tournament performance: won SEC tournament and made the Final Four. To finish this off right, I can’t forget Dominique Hawkins’ clutch threes in 2016 to squeeze out a win over LOU in Rupp that sent Rick out flipping off the crowd in his last appearance in Rupp as coach. But u know, the dominance doesn’t even end there: even some of CAL’s lesser teams still manhandled the CARDS: a 30-pt win in Rupp in 2017, and I think maybe a 15-pt win in 2018—then another one that deserves honorable mention as pretty memorable: the 2019 matchup in Rupp that went to OT that I remember as the day I fell in love with Nick Richards–he and Ashton Hagans took over in OT in a game that was an all-out war on both sides, and a very exciting and nerve-wracking game–but a fun one! And then Oscar and Jacob Toppin added a couple of nice beatdowns on them too, two years in a row, then last year the last CAL team with Reed and Rob put on another clinic in the YUM! I tell ya, the dominance in this series over generations, basically my entire lifetime, has been undeniable. If u look back over the history of this series, alot of their wins over us have come when we were very very down as a program, like when we were going thru the probation era in the late 80s, the two Billy Gillispie teams, and a couple of the worst CAL teams. Actually, as far as coaches go, Tubby struggled against LOU more than any of them! He ended up squeezing out a winning record over Rick but it was just by like one game. Our worst loss to LOU ever, WITHOUT A DOUBT, was Tubbys first team in 1998, when our national championship team got upset by Denny Crim’s worst LOU team ever, that finished 12-20 on the season, but had the 3-pt shooting game of their season against us, and beat us 79-76. I will never forget that. I think the bball gods delivered that national championship to Tubby that year just to save him, because at the time of that loss, I didn’t know how Tubby was going to be able to live that game down and survive here. The very first season of following Rick and the first game against LOU in Rupp. That’s why I worry about today–and that’s why this game is different, and why it is always nerve-wracking. Because it is a series that has seen everything, from one end to the other, and u have to throw out records, and past performances, and what each team actually is over the course of the season. Because on that ONE DAY, it is separate from all the rest of the season. Going back to Tubby’s struggles with LOU, he also had what was his best team (aside from 1998) in 2003 that was a Keith Bogans’ ankle sprain away from a Final 4, swept the SEC reg season and tournament, and won 26 games in a row—beginning after a BLOWOUT loss to LOU in DEC 2002. We also lost to them again the following year in Rupp. The Patrick Sparks game the year after that allowed Tubby to escape with a winning record against Pitino–thats how close it was. He really did struggle against LOU, but I think it was more so Pitino he struggled against, because they each knew the other so well. And the interesting thing is Mark Pope finds himself today in the exact same situation that Tubby was in in 1998: his first season coaching at KY, following a legend who was a championship-winning coach and gone to multiple Final 4s, and the game being played in Rupp Arena. It’s quite a bit of irony and similarity there–and is what makes me so nervous! But its also another point of history for the series: the first meeting between the schools with both having brand new coaches in their first season. So this game here today will be closely followed and closely remembered. Cmon CATS—bring the energy, bring the passion, bring the intensity, bring what being a WILDCAT is all about! GO CATS!!! BEAT THE CARDS!!!! L’s DOWN!!!!
And now, after the 2024 edition of The Battle of The Bluegrass has now been played, I have to now add the newest chapter of memorable performances and moments in this series: Big Lamont Butler goes off for the second-highest individual-scoring game by a Wildcat in the series with 33 points with a perfect night of FG shooting: 10-10!!! And I say "BIG" Lamont because Lamont came up big and played with the heart of a champion, and that’s because he HAS the heart of a champion! After watching his postgame interview, I was even more impressed with his maturity, and his composure, and the way he engaged himself and communicated with the media–just a classy young man, and a gamer. He, Jaxson, and Ortega are the 3 most important players on this team, without a doubt–i would say Carr and Amari behind them at 4th and 5th–but those first 3 are the top 3, and the 3 this team can least afford to ever do without! GO CATS!!!! L’s DOWN!!!!!