Questioning My Kentucky Fandom
By: Collier Wireman
Tags: Calipari, Kentucky, Basketball

After having two nights to digest the embarrassing basketball loss to the University of Evansville and five nights to digest the slow and painful football loss to the University of Tennessee, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t like losing to teams that we have no business losing to (like Tennessee) and it’s especially not my favorite thing in the world losing to non-Power 5 teams at home (University of EVANSVILLE). I call this, my friends, a sad week to be a Kentucky Wildcat fan. After losing to Evansville, getting on Twitter wasn’t even an option because of all the trolling and embarrassing stats that were flying around considering that Kentucky was the #1 team in the country and proceeded to lose to EVANSVILLE at Rupp Arena. No disrespect to the University of Evansville — I’m sure the Purple Aces beat the #1 team in the country all the time — but there is no way that they should come into Rupp Arena and get a victory over the Cats. While this has been a terrible six-day period to be a Wildcat fan, there’s no need to beat the nail in the ground with negativity, so while I focus on the bad stuff, I might as well bring up some positive points too. Let’s hop in…

Bad

The Loss is Mainly Just Embarrassing

That’s pretty much it. Losing to an unranked non-Power 5 school is a tough pill to swallow and it’s even harder when you’re ranked the #1 team in the country. Coming into the game, Evansville was a 25-point underdog which actually felt too little since Kentucky was just coming off of a big-time win against top-ranked Michigan State and Evansville was predicted to finish 8th out of 10 teams in the Missouri Valley Conference (writers are stupid, huh?). This was a complete all systems failure by the Cats and couldn’t have blindsided the fan base any worse. I was getting ridiculed by all my peers (I’m definitely not the only fan that got mocked for this loss) and it got so bad, that my friend, Cleveland native and Browns superfan, Danny McGuire, started mocking me about the loss (did I mention he is a fan of the Browns!). Flatout embarrassing when Browns fans start mocking you.

Good

At Least It Can’t Get Any Worse

This is the bottom of the cellar when it comes to losses. I don’t think it can get any worse than losing to a Missouri Valley Conference team as a 25-point favorite at home. I guess we can consider this a positive point?

Bad

We Got Out Outrebounded

If you would’ve told me before the game that we were going to get outrebounded, I wouldn’t have believed you. I might have even bet all my money that we wouldn’t get outrebounded. It’s a good thing nobody made that bet with me because I would be a poor man. Kentucky getting outrebounded 38–35 against Evansville is just… confusing. Even though EJ Montgomery sat out with an ankle injury, there is no reason we should get outrebounded by Evansville. At some point, rebounding is about hustle and just wanting it more, which you could tell Evansville did just from watching.

Good

Kentucky Won’t Overlook Anybody Else

This loss almost certainly means Coach Cal will have this team up and ready for every game for the rest of the season. I imagine Cal will remind this team about this game for so long, they’ll never even want to take a vacation to Evansville, which I’m sure the players planned on doing sometime in their lives because of how nice the summers are there (maybe?). While the game is embarrassing for us fans, the players are probably wondering how they lost too and they certainly won’t want to get embarrassed like this again. I’m ready to see how this team bounces back for the rest of the season.

Bad

Other Teams Now Have the Blueprint

While this Kentucky team wasn’t going to go undefeated, it certainly doesn’t help them now that every team has film on how to exploit them. While Kentucky won’t (hopefully) shoot 4 for 17 from 3-point land every game or have 13 total turnovers while only having 6 total assists, they did show notable weaknesses in this game. Sestina getting beat off the dribble, Hagans’s inability to finish at the rim or ability to make open 3-points shots, and the team's lack of rebounding are just a few spots that the Wildcats struggle at.

Good

Kentucky Can Still Make a Deep Run in March

While this loss will be embarrassing for the coming days, it is still only November and was only the 3rd game of the season. I did just write Why Kentucky Will Win the National Championship nine days ago and everything in that article still applies. This team can still be dangerous come March and can make it to the national championship. The whole point of being a fan is overreacting in the worst possible ways (which I’m perfect at), but sometimes you have to look past the recency bias and look at the season as a whole (my philosophical writing strikes again).