Kentucky Basketball Post

The Sports Guy has referred to it as "fantanking", the act of rooting against your own team for selfish, though usually team related, reasons. It can be an NBA or NFL fan hoping for a high draft pick, or someone dissatisfied with his team who is looking for changes. In 1999, I attended the UK-LSU football game with my friend Blaine, a rabid LSU fan. It was in the Gerry DiNardo days for LSU. As UK pulled away, Blaine began rooting with us, in hopes that a blowout loss would hasten DiNardo's demise. A couple games later, DiNardo was, in fact, canned. LSU hired Nick Saban and the program has never looked back. DiNardo, it should be noted, was coaching in the XFL a couple of years later.

With that as a backdrop, I have to admit that I watched last night's game in a state of pure ambivalence. It was a tight, if poorly played, affair. The game had ebbs and flows, featured a huge performance (Nick Calathes of the Gators), and my team won on a late shot after making a pretty strong late comeback. Whats more, it was a game that Kentucky had to win to salvage its season. This game would have usually had me reaching for Maalox and Bud Light. Instead, when Meeks hit that three with 4.7 left to give us the lead, I barely raised an eyebrow.

After the game I had to admit to myself that my desire to see Billy Gillespie run out of town is almost as strong as my love for the Cats. That is unhealthy, I know. The truth is, I don't think he is a very good coach and his bizarre behavior leads me to believe he is not the right front man for a program of this caliber. Whether I am right about these things is an open question, but I'll concede that they are not good enough reasons to merely shrug my shoulders and smile after a huge, potentially season altering win.

A second, albeit related, factor is at work. I knew if we lost I could write the season off. Now I am going to have to care the rest of the way. Break out the Bud Light and Maalox.


The Cats road to the NCAA tournament is still paved with potholes. There is the issue of Patrick Patterson's injury. Word is, it is only an ankle sprain. From the look on his face and the tears in his eyes when it happened, I'd say its a severe one. Still, you never know how these things will react. Patrick may miss the Valentine's day tilt with the Razorbacks, but hopefully nothing beyond that. At 17-7, 6-3 with seven regular season games left, I feel we'll need a 4-3 finish to be "in" pending the conference tournaments. Even then we might need a win in the SEC to sew things up.

How do we get there? The remaining games are at Arkansas, Vandy, South Carolina and Florida and at home against Tennessee, LSU and Georgia. That leaves only one safe game (UGA) and probably only two others (at a reeling Arkansas, home against UT) where the Cats would be favored if Patterson were healthy and the game were tomorrow. If we cannot win out at home, we'll need to split the road games. LSU is scorching hot, and UT still has the most talent in the league. Lose one of those, and we will need to have beaten Arkansas and at least one of Vandy (bad place to play), USC (hot and 13-1, 4-0 at home) and Florida (out for blood, senior night, yet a place we usually play pretty well) on the road.

I'm not really convinced we'll do it, but I am back in the fold for the duration. Bottom line, its no fun not to root for your team. Why waste your time loving sports otherwise.