I’m really lazy right now. Like, I couldn’t be less motivated if I tried. Of course, I’m not motivated enough to try in the first place.
Why am I telling you this? Because I can’t bring myself to hate on Louisville this week.
Sure, I hate them as much as the next guy in the days leading up to the annual regular-season football and basketball games.
But not this time. Not like this.
If you haven’t already thrown your computer/smartphone against the wall and shrieked in horror at such blasphemy from a Kentucky fan, hear me out.
See, I don’t like Louisville. But right now, I don’t and can’t hate them. I certainly couldn’t get in a fight with a 70-year old dialysis patient.
While a small part of this is a quasi-respectful, “I’m happy for them for making it to the Final Four”-type of apathy, it stems more from the fact that Kentucky is at such a higher level than Louisville right now that hating them seems like class-based bigotry.
Hating on Louisville would be like the rich kid living in a gated community hating the kid who lives a couple blocks over in a modest vinyl-siding subdivision. That isn’t an intended slight against UL, it’s just painting a picture of where these two teams currently reside in the basketball landscape.
(Actually, scratch that, because for the immediate future, both teams reside in New Orleans, at least until around 8:15 or so Saturday evening.)
Spending my week being obsessed with mocking a team that isn’t as relevant or dominant as the one I call my own would be counterproductive, and it wastes energy that could be otherwise used to cheer for Kentucky, to celebrate a great run so far, and to realize the fact that, regardless of anything, Anthony Davis has at most 2 games left in a Kentucky uniform. The almost certain end of his short-but-spectacular college career, regardless of how it happens, is a sadder fact for me than the prospect of losing to Louisville.
Now, I’m not saying that Louisville isn’t a good team, because they are. They have a nice collection of talent, and are coached by an all-timer who has rediscovered a bit of his mojo. But to look at Louisville and Kentucky as being equals is wrong. Kentucky under John Calipari is simply too elite, and that has never been more apparent than this year.
Meanwhile, Louisville under Rick Pitino has been largely mediocre, save a couple of nice Final Four runs for which, once again, I give the team props.
Am I nervous? Meh, a little. But it’s more a nervousness in the sense of feeling that this is a Kentucky team bound by destiny, so a loss of any kind, not just the possibility of losing to an in-state rival, would shake up my belief in the sports cosmos.
I’m sure that as the week drags on and the juices get flowing, I’ll be ready to throw down some trash talk. But until then, I have an almost enlightened sense of peace and well-being, knowing that there is, at the moment, no hate in my heart.
Not until Saturday, anyway.
