DeAndre Liggins, one of the few veterans on the Kentucky basketball team who endured the wars of last year’s game with Louisville, knows all about the mind games and brutality that are a part of rivalry games.
As a Chicago native, Liggins said the physical, borderline out-of-control play of last season’s Dream Game was just another basketball game on the streets of the Windy City.
“That’s part of me,” Liggins said. “I’m a physical basketball player. I’m ready for all that kind of pushing and shoving because I’m from Chicago. The way we played, a guy catches the ball and we hit them. That’s the kind of game we played in Chicago on the streets. I’m ready for all that.”
But Liggins is one of the few. For six newcomers and a couple of UK veterans that hardly sniffed the floor last season, the physicality of Friday’s Kentucky-Louisville game in the Derby City will be like nothing most of the players have ever faced.
“This thing tomorrow, they will be bursting at the seams,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “We know that. I’ll imagine they’ll have a nice cheer for me. It’s going to be nuts.”
As if the Dream Game isn’t already the marquee battle of the season, tensions reached new heights last year when emotions almost got the best of both teams.
The game’s opening possession featured three fouls as former UK guard Eric Bledsoe was yanked for jawing with a Cardinal.
On the following possession, a fight nearly broke out when Kentucky freshman DeMarcus Cousins landed on and elbowed Louisville’s Jared Swopshire diving for a loose ball on the floor (the intent of the elbow to Swopshire’s chine is still a hot topic of debate to this day between the two fan bases). Louisville’s Reginald Delk retaliated once Cousins got up with a two-hand push. Whistles blew, players jawed and three technical fouls for unsportsmanlike conduct were handed down.
And all that was in the first 45 seconds.
“I honestly think last year it was everybody being new on their side,” Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said. “People making such a big deal of it, they came out of the locker room and I thought it was roller derby. It was very physical.”
Tempers eventually cooled, but the teams combined for 51 personal fouls and five technical fouls in one of the most contentious meetings in the series’ long and storied history.
Calipari, who was just as tied into the emotions of last year’s game as anyone, didn’t like the way last season’s game was played in hindsight.
“The passion and the emotion of a tough, hard-nosed contest is one thing, but when it moves beyond that, when there’s a nastiness to it, whether it be in the stands, toward the teams or the coaches or each other, it’s not good for what we do,” Calipari said. “This game should be one of those vicious, clean, everybody’s just playing hard and playing to win, and then when it’s over, everyone that leaves the arena or leaves their television set says, ‘Now that’s basketball. I enjoyed watching that. That was the (best) game I’ve watched all year.’ “
Nobody was willing to call last year’s game dirty or concede that the proverbial line in what’s too much was crossed, but both teams were certainly tiptoeing on playing too aggressive.
“Last year’s game was kind of different than any other game that we have been involved in really,” junior guard/forward Darius Miller said.
If play mirrors what it did in Rupp Arena last season, depth will become a major factor. Louisville was thought to have a decisive depth advantage in this year’s Battle of the Bluegrass, but injuries to U of L’s lineup have quickly turned the tables.
Pitino announced Thursday that forward Rakeem Buckles will not play Friday in addition to previously injured guards Mike Marra and Elijah Justice and forward Jared Swopshire. Buckles has a spiral fracture in one of his fingers and is expected to miss a couple of weeks. Pitino said Swopshire, who has missed the entire season, is likely done for the year.
Although Swopshire hasn’t played this year, the losses of Buckles, Marra and Justice are huge blows for the 20th-ranked Cards. All three players average 15 or more minutes, and Marra and Buckles average 9.3 and 8.2 points per game, respectively.
Kentucky, with only 10 scholarship players on the roster, has played with limited depth all season. Recently, Calipari has gone with a seven-man rotation.
“I think we’re both undermanned a little bit,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “I think we’re both limited. They’ve got guys on their team that if they get in foul trouble, they’re going to struggle. I think we’re both in the same boat.”
Calipari denied that he or his team is treating this game any differently, but the second-year UK coach coach is preparing his players for another slugfest.
“The intensity of the game is going to be crazy,” Calipari said. “You better be ready to play through grabs and holds and pushes and shoves. It’s going to be a physical game. You better be able to finish around the rim, because if you think you are going to go up and nobody is going to go after it and nobody is going to hit your body, (you’re mistaken). If you are going to rebound, you better get on a body because that body is going to be on you pushing you out of bounds.”
Kentucky is looking for its second straight win in the series after back-to-back victories by Louisville. The meeting will mark the first time the two teams have both been ranked since the 2005-06 season.
Coupled with the opening of the KFC Yum! Center and the ever-present coaching rivalry between Calipari and Pitino, the rivalry seems to have reached yet another pinnacle.
“It’s just like Duke-Carolina,” Pitino said. “What’s the difference? It’s like any rivalry game. The two teams are going to play hard.”
Senior forward Josh Harrellson said they were excited about playing North Carolina because it was the first big road test of the season, but he said playing Louisville is a “totally different element” because of the passion between the two schools.
“The whole Big Blue Nation is ready for the Louisville-Kentucky game,” Harrellson said. “This is the only game it seems like (the fans) care about sometimes. That’s all they care about is us whooping them, so hopefully we can do it.”
