THE FINAL SAY
By Zach McCrite
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College
Basketball’s
New ‘Normal?’
ANYMORE, college basketball around these
parts seems to be so – don’t know – odd.
First, it was “StripperGate.” That’s not normal
anywhere in college basketball. Is it?
Rick Pitino and Tom Jurich unceremoniously
dismissed at the University of Louisville. John
Calipari getting prodded by his own fans for not
getting top-5 recruits to commit to the University of
Kentucky anymore. Tom Crean fired in Bloomington
just one year removed from winning a Big Ten
Championship and beating Kentucky in the NCAA
Tournament.
It’s all just… odd.
And I’m not sure there’s an end in sight.
THE “DREAM” SEASON OF
INDIANA BASKETBALL
Let’s start with IU basketball, which spent the
majority of January losing to seemingly-inferior
teams or getting crushed by similar or better
teams. This comes after wins over three teams who
are (as of this writing) Top 30 teams (Marquette,
Louisville, Butler).
Now don’t misread that as some sort of super-
shock attached to an unrealistically-successful
expectation of what I thought Hoosier basketball
would look like this season. Far from it.
But, the way they’ve looked in some of their losses,
in what is now the second half of the season, have
been painful for crimson-clad fans.
Injuries, of course, have played a part. Top-50
32 EXTOL : FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019
ZACH MCCRITE
recruit Jerome Hunter had a mysterious, season-
ending leg injury. Rob Phinisee suffered a rather
innocuous head thud that turned into a multiple
game-sitting concussion. Other important players
have missed a game or two.
And it’s left IU fans sitting far more frustrated
than the majority expected to ever be this season.
We should’ve known this was coming when
Southern Indiana’s own, Romeo Langford,
committed to the Hoosiers. It was easy for
everyone with a heart that beats for Indiana to
dream impossible dreams about how “The Romeo
Year” will go.
As a friend of mine, ESPN 680’s Andy Sweeney,
put it (and I will paraphrase): It’s akin to going on
vacation, then you blink, and it’s more than half
over, and you’ve got the slightest tinge of depression
that it’s almost over. That’s The Romeo Year in a
nutshell, at least it is as of this writing.
And it’s a frustratingly odd feeling for IU fans.
THE SPEEDY RESURGENCE
OF LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL
And very recently, Hoosier fans have been calling
Louisville a “quality win.” And it is.
But who could’ve believed that would be the
case considering what Louisville head coach Chris
Mack inherited from a program whose best news
during a complete revamping of a university’s
athletic department was that they “only” lost 14
games last season. It was a mess in there.
The five most-played players last season all
departed, save for VJ King, who is used less this
season. And the team is better.
So, more or less, the end of last year’s bench
plus players recruited at the 11th hour by the
newly-minted head coach are now looking like
a surefire NCAA Tournament team, the rigorous
end-of-the-season schedule notwithstanding.
Now, if what Archie Miller is attempting to do at
Indiana is a standard rebuild of a storied program,
then what Chris Mack is doing is nothing short of
remarkable thus far.
Not normal.
THE KENTUCKY-LOUISVILLE RIVALRY
One thing that isn’t odd anymore is the
dominance of Kentucky in their annual matchup
against the Cardinals. University of Kentucky head
coach John Calipari speaks time and again about
his program being the “Super Bowl” for most of
the opponent’s on their schedule.
You’ll get no argument from me on that.
In fact, it’s an argument I think Mack can start
using as well when he refers to the Wildcats.
For instance, last season, Kentucky got beat by
a UCLA team that eventually stumbled into the
tournament as an 11-seed. And in the Cats’ very
next game, they walloped U of L by almost 30 in
Rupp Arena.
Fast forward to earlier this season, where the
result was rarely ever in doubt as the Cats came into
the KFC Yum Center and smacked the Cardinals
only to come back in their next game and lay an
egg on the road to a run-of-the-mill Alabama team.
No matter how bad the games surrounding it
may be, Kentucky seems to always save their best
game for when they play Louisville. For all the
“Super Bowls” Kentucky must play every year, it
appears the Cats have one of their own – Louisville.
And they win it plenty.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not surprised
that UK beat U of L in Mack’s first season. But, I
left the arena that day with a weird feeling. And,
no, it wasn’t the booze.
Being just down the road from Cincinnati, I got
used to hearing about the “Crosstown Rivalry”
between Cincinnati and Xavier, the school at which
Mack both played and coached the majority of his
career before coming to Louisville. When I saw that
rivalry on television or watched the postgame press
conferences or read the game recaps, I could feel
it. You know what I mean?
More specifically, from the 2011 blood-inducing
brawl to the barbs thrown between Mack and
Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin after the
matchup just over a year ago, I could feel hatred. I
could feel Mack’s imprint in the rivalry, especially
after Xavier won eight of the last 11 before he
departed.
That’s not to say that I was expecting fisticuffs
in Mack’s first soiree with Calipari. Hell, I’m not
even sure what I expected. Maybe it was just some
semblance of drama in the game, and I got nothing.
Just another oddity to this season of local college
hoops.
But after what we’ve experienced around here
in the last handful of years, perhaps this is just
our new normal.