By Steve Springer
@racercard
By all accounts, new University of Louisville Head Coach Pat Kelsey is pushing all the right buttons. He’s saying all the right things. He’s gone quasi-viral for things like catching punts behind his back, funny postgame quotes and roaming campus recruiting the student base back to the YUM for big games.
His new patchwork party of players dominated exhibitions in the Bahamas, then almost did the impossible by returning to the Bahamian paradise and a runners-up by running over rivals Indiana by 28 and West Virginia, in overtime, on their way to the championship game of the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Revenge for an unacceptable loss due to the ineptitude of the previous regime in a rematch against neighboring Bellarmine, done. Embarrassing exhibition losses to Leanne Rimes, distant past. November winning streaks bringing back hype and excitement to Denny Crum Court, check. He is mastering the B-level accomplishments.
There is one thing he has not had the chance to accomplish yet. He will get to chance to do something that legendary Hall of Fame coaches Denny Crum and Rick Pitino were only able to do at a 35% clip. Cool Hand Luke was 7-13 and Slick Rick were a combined 13-25 against I-64 East. 7-13 and 6-12 respectively, but not respectable. The first-year transfer from College of Charleston has a chance to make his real, first histrionic victory.
All the W’s he has notched so far are just aesthetic window dressing. Saturday presents the opportunity for Kelsey and his lineup to roll into Rupp Arena and stride out with a newfound support and optimism for his coaching legacy that no other single-game contest could match. Depleted, outmanned and under-ranked, the Cards can shock the college basketball landscape with a seismic win over Mark Pope’s inaugural squad in Lexington. The Cats are rolling at 9-1 and ranked 5th in the country with impressive wins over 6th-ranked Duke and 7th-ranked Gonzaga.
The Cards on the other hand, are limping into this year’s iteration of the Dream Game missing multiple key players to injury and practically a six or seven-man rotation. At full strength, the game should have been a good one. As a top-ten team at home welcoming a sneaker-wearing MASH unit, a beat down is now expected.
This likely outcome is only acceptable because, at best, Kelsey will probably blow by Pope faster than an Indy 500 pit stop on 2X speed. No more of UofL’s coach practically making out at midcourt with the Bluies head coach after a blowout. The unlikely outcome, however, is where the potential lies. Potential to reinvigorate a fan base to a level 10 for the future of the program.
Potential for a coach, new to the Power Conference level, to rise to the top of the crop of his peers for what he was able to do which would only be able to be attributed to his coaching ability to motivate and manipulate the X’s and O’s the way only a few can, given the medically-deficient circumstances.
On that fateful 1983 day in the Knoxville Regionals, a young Denny Crum squad sent a message that not only took the state by surprise, it reverberated throughout the college basketball world. Kelsey’s squad has the same opportunity this time around. To knock off the Wildcats in Lexington when they are riding higher than they have in quite a while under their newfound euphoria with Coach Pope would elevate Kelsey’s reputation with his peers and the national pundits and officially re-cement Louisville on the national stage. A stage that has been deficient without top-ten battles between the red and blue.
Forget Tobacco Road rivalries. They are fun, sure. But they happen two or three times a year, even four possibly if they meet up in The Big Dance.
The repercussions of this bitter, hardwood antagonism endow bragging rights for an entire year between families and coworkers and neighbors and church members. Newly-extended Athletic Director Josh Heird took what the fan-base originally deemed, at best, an eyebrow-raising, questionable desperation, halfcourt heave on Kelsey, and the up-and-coming phenom jumped at it with an appropriate level of enthusiasm and reverence for one of the top programs in the history of the sport. Now Kelsey gets his shot.