Tag: Auburn Kentucky

It was common practice just five seasons ago that when Auburn pulled out the rare occurrence of beating Kentucky in basketball, the court would be stormed. Heck, this was the case even when Auburn was the favorites as the Tigers were in 2000.

It would be a shocker. A cliche case of David vs. Goliath with the Wildcats serving as the constant punishers. If Auburn dominates the series in football, it was even worse the opposite way when it came to basketball. Between 1990 and 2015, Kentucky went an eye-popping 33-1 against the Tigers.

Let’s repeat that: 33-1. And that included a lot of blowouts at the hands of Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith and John Calipari.

Yet it all changed with that upset victory in 2016. Since Kareem Canty and the Tigers scored the upset, it has been Auburn the aggressor and Kentucky the hunted. Amazingly, the Tigers lead 6-5 in the last 11 matchups. Who could have ever thought that possible?

I’ve told the story before but I will repeat it here: Right after Bruce Pearl was hired, I sat beside him and his son, Steven, at The Hound in downtown Auburn. We had a friendly conversation and I asked him to just beat Kentucky for me. His response: “Maybe not this year, but we will get there.”

He’s definitely reached that point. Sure, this year’s Kentucky team is far from what you usually see on the court from a Calipari-coached side. They are struggling mightily but, then again, they have a roster full of McDonald’s All-Americans and so many 5-stars that would make even Nick Saban blush. Off year or not, the Wildcats are still the standard in the SEC and for most of college basketball.

Pearl has turned the series on its head by building a program full of players that don’t cower in the face of the Kentucky uniform. That wasn’t always the case. When they see that name on the front, many Auburn teams in the past immediately wilted. Who can blame them?

Yet we can all thank Pearl and the 2019 team for putting that to bed. Everything, and I mean everything, was pointing toward a Kentucky win in that Elite Eight game. The Wildcats had won the previous two matchups including a month earlier in Rupp in a blowout. Chuma Okeke was out after turning into Auburn’s best player and, well, their jerseys said Kentucky and ours said Auburn.

Jared Harper, Bryce Brown and the rest of the gang basically said, “To heck with that narrative” and went out and did the darn thing.

Now, a win against Kentucky isn’t treated as an upset or should it. This isn’t to say that the two programs are on the same level. Far from it. Calipari still brings in the elite of the elite each and every season and only once in a blue moon do the Wildcats have a season like this.

But it is getting closer and, despite the struggles this year’s team has seen so far during the growing process, they stepped up in the big moment against the winningest program in the sport’s history.

It once took an extraordinary effort and game with everything having to fall in place for Auburn to be on the winning side against Kentucky in basketball. Pearl is now making that look ordinary and, like yesterday, even expected.