The word “annoying” first originated in Nashville, Tennessee. In fact, in 1873, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt gave 1 million dollars to the school that was originally named [I]Annoying U[/I]. They later named it after the money bags Mcgee guy, Vanderbilt. I could go on and on about how irritating Vandy is as a school, a member of the SEC or just members of society, but i think you probably already know that. But do you know, how hard its been for the Cats to win in that joke of an Arena?
At Memorial Gymnasium Kentucky has a 34-24 record against Vandy. Not as dominating as UK is at other venues like Ole Miss’ Tad Smith Coliseum where they are 25-10 against the rebels. If you remember UK has had to give super human effort in some recent games at Memorial Gym. How about Nazr’s running buzzer beater in 1998? Or the overtime win in 2000? John Wall secured a win in 2010 with a fingertip block on Jon Jenkins (see pictured above).
Tubby struggled at Vandy during the latter part of his UK coaching career. In his 4 losses at Vandy UK lost by a total of 24 points. All close games till the very end. Then Billy Gilispie comes along and gets the doors blown off his face, losing in Nashville by 41 points. The ol’ drunk thought he just roll his team into Tennessee and give it a go. He soon found out, Vanderbilt is not a regular road game. His next meeting was a little closer as the Cats lost by 13 points.
[B]
Since 2002, Kentucky is 3-10 at Vandy[/B]. One of those wins was the infamous block on Jenkins by John Wall. In fact, if it weren’t for that block we could be talking about UK trying to break a 6 game losing slide at Vandy this Saturday.
In UK’s last 7 losses, Vanderbilt had 170 free throw attempts where UK only had 126. That’s a 44 point differential at what some call the “charity strip”. The Cats can ill afford to let dorks—uh, I mean dores. get to the line often in this match up. Will the referees call it close and be influenced by the smartest fans in the SEC? In the last win at Vandy, UK shot 10 more free throws than did the dores, be more aggressive and you’ll have a shot at the end.
Everyone knows that Vandy has some bad losses this year and haven’t played up to the media’s expectations. This year they have lost to Indiana State and Cleveland State, both at home. They also lost to Louisville, what’s that about? However, it doesn’t matter now. Vanderbilt now has Festus Ezili back and they always show up for UK. I know coach Cal always says UK is every team’s super bowl, but UK IS Vanderbilt’s last true game because afterwards they give up basketball and focus on their studies. You can’t start preparing too early for finals.
Memorial Gymnasium is probably the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] most imposing place UK plays at. I would give Indiana the edge since they have no regard for human life. I mean it takes a lot of skill to say the F word for 2 hours straight, mad props. With the court layout, Kevin Stallings finger whistle, and the revenge of the nerds bravado, UK will find itself in the middle of hard fought game. This team has shown it doesn’t get scared easily and performs well on the road. Will it continue on Gameday?
