Gary Parrish, the brilliant(by brilliant I mean, obvious, tacky and ignorant) writer for CBS sports, hits the ground running in hyping up the UK vs. UL game this weekend. Here’s an exerpt.
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]The buildup in the state over the next six days will be … something.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]”There will be people at Kentucky that will have a nervous breakdown if they lose to us,” Pitino said. “You’ve got to watch. They’ve got to put the fences up on the bridges. There will be people consumed by Louisville.”[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Most notably Calipari.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]The man who has now taken three different schools to a total of four Final Fours — yes, I know two of them have been vacated, but whatever — did a nice job of deflecting the spotlight that’ll shine on him and Pitino this week, and he said over and over again Sunday that he’s looking at this game no differently than any other.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]But that’s impossible. And the truth is that, on some level, this matchup that is a sportswriter’s dream has to be Calipari’s worst nightmare.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Think about it.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]The only thing worse than Calipari losing in the Final Four with this roster would be Calipari losing to Pitino’s Cardinals in the Final Four with this roster. It would crush the Big Blue Nation more than Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beater in the 1992 East Regional final and sink Calipari worse than Mario Chalmers’ buzzer-beater in the 2008 national title game.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Kentucky fans might really never get over it.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Calipari almost certainly wouldn’t.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Which is probably why Pitino and his players seemed downright giddy Saturday discussing the possibility of playing Kentucky while Calipari and his players were less interested Sunday in talking about the specifics that make this national semifinal juicier than anything we’ve experienced in a while.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]This is the fourth time in history that two in-state schools have met in the Final Four and the first time since 1962. And though I can’t speak to what it was like back then when Ohio State and Cincinnati clashed in Freedom Hall with a title on the line because I was still 15 years from being born, I can’t imagine it was more intense than what the Superdome figures to be Saturday night when Kentucky-Louisville tips at 6:09 ET.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Between now and then, the story will build.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]I’ll write stories.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]You’ll read stories.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]All the television networks will produce stories, and you’ll watch them just like I’ll watch them. You’ll hear about Calipari and Pitino’s past and listen to people try to pinpoint where their relationship turned bad for good. You’ll hear about them fighting over Marquis Teague (Calipari won that one) and Chane Behanan (Pitino won that one). You’ll hear about the New Year’s Eve game. You’ll hear about when the two coaches met in the 1996 Final Four while Calipari was at UMass and Pitino was at Kentucky. And you’ll probably hear about vacated Final Fours and extramarital affairs at some point, too, because, you know, there’s a lot of time to fill.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]And then the game will begin and Kentucky and Louisville will play for 40 minutes.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]Calipari will insist it’s just another game.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]But that’s not true, and he knows it.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]What this represents is the biggest game of his career.[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=arial][I]God help him if he somehow loses it.
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Parrish and Pitino must be sipping the same crazy juice, this is not the biggest game of Cal’s career, it is just the game he has to win in order to get to the biggest game of his career.
[URL=”http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/18047886/kentucky-vs-louisville-in-final-four-get-ready-for-unprecedented-buildup”]Source[/URL]
