Midwest Regional | Edge: Louisville-Michigan State
INDIANAPOLIS -- Whoever you root for, you're rooting for the wrong team. Don't care if it's North Carolina or Oklahoma or Michigan State or whoever won the East or West Regionals on Saturday.
If you think you have it good or your team is riding high, you're wrong. Because your team could be riding higher. You could have it better.
You could be a fan of Louisville.
Go to a sports bar or a shopping mall or wherever it is you go, and find someone wearing a Louisville basketball jersey. And then think about how good that guy's life is right now.
His team is hours from reaching the Final Four for the second time in five years. His team might just be the best in college basketball, anointed as such by the NCAA tournament selection committee, which gave the Cardinals the No. 1 overall seed, and then verified by an absolute demolition of Arizona in the Sweet 16. The Cardinals won that game by 39 points, growing their winning streak to 13 consecutive games.
Louisville hasn't just been winning. Louisville has been destroying. The Cardinals have won those 13 games by an average margin of 17.1 points, ridiculous considering three of those games have been in the NCAA tournament, three in the Big East tournament, and the other seven against conference teams.
Louisville is up.
And Kentucky is down.
And I'm not sure which is sweeter for Louisville fans.
On message boards, they're celebrating both equally. As of this writing, on the Rivals.com message board devoted to Louisville hoops, the first page had eight different discussions devoted to Kentucky's misery, including three of the first five threads. One day before Louisville plays Michigan State for a spot in the Final Four, they're relishing Kentucky's demise.
Imagine what Friday was like for a Louisville fan. You think your life is good? Your life sucks, because this wasn't your Friday:
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| You'll forgive Rick Pitino if he would rather stay at Louisville than return to Kentucky. (US Presswire) |
And then a few hours later, Louisville posted the biggest NCAA tournament wipeout in program history, and one of the biggest routs in Sweet 16 history. The Cardinals have won 60 games in the NCAA tournament all-time, but never have they beaten a team as badly as they beat Arizona. And not since 1967 has a Sweet 16 ended as lopsidedly as this one -- and in 1967, the team doing the routing was UCLA, with Lew Alcindor, en route to the national title.
That's where Louisville is headed, possibly. To the national title. This isn't a prediction, because Connecticut and North Carolina are too good to simply discount, but if you're a Louisville fan today, you have to be figuring your team could win it all. Even Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, whose team lost earlier this season to North Carolina by 35 points -- and who said that night that North Carolina was one of the best teams he had ever seen -- says Louisville is playing at a dangerously high level. Perhaps the most dangerously high level of any team left in the tournament.
"In studying Louisville, I think they're deserving of their No. 1 [overall] No. 1 seed," Izzo said. "They're well-coached. They've got depth. They've got versatility. They've got that rotation of those guards that's almost down to a science. ... Yeah, I think they're definitely worthy of [being considered] at least one or two of the best teams in the country. Right now, the way they're playing, it's probably the best team in the country."
That's your team, Louisville. Best in the country. And at your archrival Kentucky, things are in disarray. Tubby Smith inherited a dominant Kentucky program in 1998, turned off the cruise control and made winning look hard -- but at least he won. At least he got to the NCAA tournament every year and won games while he was there. Gillispie didn't even do that. Gillispie took a blue-chip job at what was one of its lower points, and found a way to take it lower.
Kentucky is a mess. Stars Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson might stick around, but they might decide to get out while the getting's good. And if they leave, Kentucky will be abysmal next season. Not just mediocre, or even bad. Abysmal.
Kentucky couldn't even get the coach it wanted. Just like two years ago when Smith left on his own volition -- for Minnesota! -- Kentucky wanted Florida's Billy Donovan. Just like two years ago, Donovan didn't want Kentucky. With Meeks and Patterson unlikely to stay more than one season, assuming they stay that long, the Wildcats are entering a dangerous stage. If Kentucky ends up with anybody but Memphis' John Calipari, the program is in for a slow rebuilding process.
Meanwhile, one of the greatest coaches in Kentucky history is alive and well and still coveted by a number of Kentucky fans. Some of them are unabashed in their desire to have him back. Others keep their desire a secret, but if he did come back, they'd give him a hero's welcome.
But Rick Pitino isn't coming back.
He's coaching Louisville, where on Sunday he will lead the best team in college basketball past Michigan State and into the Final Four.
