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Bluegrass Armageddon has misplaced its mojo. Kentucky is reeling from its first 1-5 start since Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. Louisville is still smarting from last week's 37-point drubbing at Wisconsin.
The two rivals meet Saturday as unranked teams for the first time since 2008 and only the fifth time since the Associated Press college basketball poll was launched in 1949.
Question: Does any of that matter?
Are bragging rights diminished when rival teams are simultaneously struggling? Does hatred ever take a holiday? Does a game that once caused a pair of dialysis patients to come to blows at a Georgetown clinic require additional context to resonate throughout the Commonwealth and beyond?
Not likely. Not even during a pandemic.
Kentucky-Louisville is like Army-Navy, like Ohio State-Michigan, like Hatfield-McCoy. It is one of those rivalries that transcends current events, deriving its meaning from history and hostility.
The two programs have 10 NCAA titles between them (11 if you count U of L’s vacated 2013 championship) and they ranked 1-2 in terms of market value in a study published last week by bustingbrackets.com. These are big businesses fueled by the disposable dollars of devoted/obsessive fans. If you throw the record book out the window, it’s bound to land within dribbling distance of some U of L fan declaiming about burning couches or a citizen of Big Blue Nation invoking Katina Powell.
Some of it is silly. Much of it is mean-spirited. All of it contributes to a spectacle that is as much about culture as competition. Though the game counts for nothing in conference standings and amounts to little more than another data point in building the NCAA Tournament bracket, perhaps only the first Saturday in May rates more circles on Kentucky calendars.
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As of Wednesday afternoon, Stubhub.com’s cheapest ticket to Saturday’s game was listed at $236. Though that price was surely inflated by seating limits attributable to COVID-19 (and better deals were available on Craigslist), Kentucky-Louisville would still be a draw if it were played at 3 a.m. on the dark side of the moon.
Consider: At least one of the two teams has entered the game ranked in the AP poll 39 times in the 43 games played since 1950. Both Kentucky and Louisville have been ranked in 18 of those meetings, including eight of the last 12.
Daniel Wilco used that same criteria in ranking the best college basketball rivalries last year for the NCAA’s website. Though Wilco omitted Kentucky-Louisville because it did not meet his minimum sample size of 50 games since 1950, only Georgetown-Syracuse and Duke-North Carolina have matched ranked teams more consistently than UK-U of L.
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There is history here and, typically, tons of talent. Thirty-one former Kentucky players were on the NBA’s opening-night rosters when the season started Tuesday, more than any other school could claim. The six former Louisville players on NBA rosters include Donovan Mitchell, who in two seasons has been the league’s Slam Dunk champion and an All-Star.
More: How Kentucky basketball has fared as an underdog vs. Louisville in John Calipari era
Though it’s usually risky to render opinions of Calipari’s freshman-dominated teams prior to conference play, this season’s 1-5 start has been an alarming aberration. The Wildcats often appear disjointed at this stage of the schedule — what with all the one-and-done players feeling each other out — but this team has thus far looked thoroughly defeated. In asking pouting freshman Cam’Ron Fletcher to step away, at least temporarily, Calipari has attempted to apply a tourniquet to a situation swiftly hemorrhaging.
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The sharks can sense blood in the water.
“They just moved our game from ESPN2 to ESPN,” Calipari said on his call-in show this week. “Why do you think they did that?” They’re hoping, ‘Here’s (loss) number six.’ ... You want more people to go to the execution.”
Granted, some viewers are sure to tune in out of morbid curiosity. It’s not often you get to see a Kentucky team playing this poorly. But many will be drawn to a rivalry about as fierce and compelling as rivalries get.
It’s Kentucky and Louisville. That’s plenty.
Tim Sullivan: 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @TimSullivan714
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Not ranked? Losing record? Pandemic? Kentucky-Louisville still a big deal in a down year