My Thoughts on Cats v. Filthy Cards

I can relate to Rick Pitino. About a decade ago, I played in the Central City Dust Bowl. I don't remember everyone on my team, but I know there was Lovell, Mikey, myself, and maybe a couple of bloggers. We were athletically challenged to say the least. I think we managed to win the first round game on Saturday morning and were scheduled to face a Hopkinsville team that evening. Again, I don't remember all of their players, but I remember Isaiah Victor, who played at Tennessee at the time, was on the team. He wasn't even their best player. After their morning game they started drinking, which we thought could be our only hope for victory. We then decided the fact that the opposing players would be fall down drunk still wouldn't be enough for us to win...we were just outmatched. But we had a plan. We set out to make them hit us. Yeah, we wanted them to physically punch us in the face so they would be thrown out of the game, and we would have a chance. We pushed, held, took cheap shots, and talked trash. All this happened under the watchful, wandering eye of referee Roger Barnes. It shook them up, but eventually they caught on and just started laughing at us. We lost, and at the end of the game they congratulated us on a good game plan. But I knew better. We were a team who couldn't compete and were willing to do whatever it took to try for the win. That is certainly competition, but not necessarily basketball. Fast forward to last Saturday at Rupp Arena. Same story. Pitino was desperate and was willing to do whatever he could to try and steal the win. Apparently the trash talking and pushing started prior to tipoff. At that point, one would think the coach of the players initiating this type of activity would pull the players aside and tell them, for the good of the team, to stop. But Pitino didn't agree. "For the good of the team" was to try and get Kentucky freshmen so rattled that they would come unglued. He wanted to get rid of the problem so he didn't have to deal with it (insert Karen Sypher joke here!). Fortunately, the young Cats were able to compose themselves and carry on. That itself is no small feat. Boogie is taking some heat, but I thought he showed great composure. He caught a knee to the head during that scrum on the floor. I don't think the knee was intentional, but in that situation, everything is taken personally. He also could have lost it when he was pushed after getting back on his feet, but again, he showed restraint. We need Boogie's attitude. If Darius Miller had that kind of fire in his belly they could go ahead and hang an 8th banner. I didn't think Kentucky played very well offensively, but part of that was pretty good defense by Louisville. It's nice to see the Cats handle an adverse situation and still find a way to win, although we probably don't see that type of game again. I am convinced good things are on the way for this team. As for Louisville, I'm not sure where they end up...when is the Central City Dust Bowl?