Louisville and Jefferson County are politically an island of blue in a sea of red, to apply the overused and cliched metaphor from the last election cycle. Over the past few days, it’s become clear that in another way, Jefferson County is an island of red in a sea of blue. Former Courier-Journal columnist Pat Forde, now appearing as a featured writeer on ESPN’s website, writes that the current happy days for UofL fans are stormy for the Big Blue Nation:
Monday morning dawned raw and rainy in Kentucky. Stepping outside, a nasty wind blew the drizzle sideways. You could see your breath.
All in all, as miserable a late-March day as you can have in the Bluegrass State.
That was metaphorically apt, at least in 119 of the state’s 120 counties, where allegiance is pledged to Big Blue. Only in the red island of Jefferson County, home of Louisville and its Final Four Cardinals, did this rainy day deserve the Gene Kelly treatment.
For the first time in 19 years, the Cards are Final Four-bound. For the first time in 11 years, Little Brother has advanced farther than Big Brother - and done it with the old coach of the Wildcats calling the tune.
This is the worst-case scenario come to life for Big Blue Nation, the very moment they knew in their guts would come when Rick Pitino was named the coach of the Louisville Cardinals four years ago. Someday - and probably sooner than later - the ‘Ville would return to the summit of college basketball.
Conditioned to life on top, Kentucky fans develop rather stiff necks when they have to look up to someone - especially when that someone resides in the same state.
Big Blue certainly has a more storied tradition than the Cards, and by most objective measures is one of the top two or three programs in all of basketball. They were winning championships long before the Cards 1980 and 1986 titles, and have won two since. From 1987-2004 (since Pervis Ellison led the Ville to its last title), Louisville was 369-221 (0.630), with zero Final Four appearances. UK was 421-117 (0.780) over the same period, with championships in 1996 and 1998. In fact, were it not for the fortuitous meeting arranged by the NCAA in on March 26, 1983 in Knoxville, you probably wouldn’t see the teams play head-to-head the way they do today.
The simple fact is that many UK fans don’t see UofL as a legitimate rival. Ask a member of Big Blue Nation who they most want to beat and the answer’s more likely to be Duke or UNC or another member of the SEC (although this undoubtedly changed when Pitino took over the program in 2001). Ask a UofL fan, and you’ll get Memphis and Cincinnati, but you’ll get UK as well. Louisville is full of Kentucky fans. I saw as much blue last Saturday (a day before UK lost to Michigan State) as I did red (the day UofL came back to beat West Virginia). Some UK fans still won’t cheer for little brother against Illinois, although even the most diehard Cat fan would have to root for Pitino’s New Bombino’s over hated UNC.
This is why I both hoped for and dreaded a UK victory on Sunday. What would the scene have been like if the Cards and Cats were on a collision course in St. Louis? It didn’t happen, of course, and so Big Blue Nation will be watching the Cards on Saturday face off against the nation’s top-ranked team. Hopefully, Louisvillians will resist the urge to gloat, as fortunes could very easily be reversed next year, as Tubby Smith gets much of his team back (less Chuck Hayes), and Pitino faces the certain loss of starters Francisco Garcia, Larry O’Bannon and Ellis Myles along with key reserve Otis George. He may lose starter Taquan Dean as well, especially if the Cards are left standing on Monday night.
