LEXINGTON — A photo shared on social media caught Louisville freshman forward Khani Rooths giving some Kentucky fans at Rupp Arena a lowercase L’s up salute with his middle finger en route to the locker room at halftime.
That was about as spicy as it got for the first 35 minutes of the Wildcats’ 93-85 win over the Cardinals on Saturday.
The game was about as clean as they come. The teams combined for just 18 turnovers. There was lots of big shot taking and big shot making to the tune of a combined 25 3-pointers. And a few individual performances will long be remembered, too, though Chucky Hepburn’s 26 points and Terrence Edwards’ 23 for Louisville were overshadowed.
UK’s Lamont Butler permanently etched his name into rivalry lore with his game-high 33 points on 10-for-10 shooting, including six 3-pointers.
That was the beauty of Saturday’s game. It was played at a high level and competitive. But what happened to the pettiness? The hate was noticeably absent from the rivalry. No snarls, no stares, no shoving. They were almost polite. No single action that simply said, “We don’t like you or the color you wear.”
UK coach Mark Pope and U of L coach Pat Kelsey ushered in a new chapter to the rivalry in their first years on their respective benches. Neither team had a single player who had experienced this rivalry before because both coaches rebuilt their rosters from scratch by going heaving in the transfer portal.
All those newcomers seemed to leave the hate behind.
“You have two veteran groups that are pretty focused on the way they compete the best, the way they give themselves the best chance to win,” Pope said. “It’s to be laser focused on the job at hand and be super disciplined about not letting the emotion be a distracting factor.”
UK had 15 of its former players write letters to the current team explaining what the rivalry was all about. Apparently, the old Cats left out the part about hating your rival.
It’s supposed to be the kind of contempt that never graduates. Just think about last summer, when former U of L player Chinanu Onuaku tried to spit at former UK guard Nate Sestina after the Cats’ group of alumni beat the Cards group during The Basketball Tournament in Freedom Hall in July.
The closest they came to showing an inkling of dislike came after an incident with 5:07 left.
U of L guard Reyne Smith was on the floor trying to secure a loose ball with UK’s Brandon Garrison scrapping for it, too. After Garrison was called for the foul, he remained towering over Smith a little too long for J’Vonne Hadley’s liking.
Hadley came in from behind and appeared to shove Garrison forward in an attempt to help Smith get up. Garrison ended up leaning fully into a sea of red jerseys on the Cards’ bench.
Pope did leave his bench to come corral Garrison as nothing more than words were exchanged as other UK players hovered nearby.
It appeared like more of a collective group hug or a trust fall than an actual skirmish.
“So, (Garrison) falls into the bench, and Lamont comes over and he’s grabbing, I’m grabbing him, and I look at him and like we both smiled like, ‘We’re good, we’re good, we’re good,'” Kelsey said.
Imagine that. Rivals smiling at each other.
After all the commotion, the officials didn’t call any additional fouls.
No technical. No nothing.
UK guard Otega Oweh said there were times when things could have turned up, but the officials kept things in order.
“Obviously, a rivalry you want to be physical, you want to battle and do all that,” said Oweh, who finished with 17 points. “The refs did a great job of just keeping everything under control.”
Play resumed as if it never happened. No chirping. No chippiness. No testiness whatsoever. It’s as if with all the preparation for playing in the game, there was no scouting report for good ol’ fashioned hate.
That’s fine for this season with the restart of programs under new coaching regimes. But for next year, here’s hoping they bring back the heat.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
