Loge Level

 

The lyrics don’t ring literal, but they are, nevertheless, appropriate in the wake of the University of Kentucky’s phenomenal upset of No. 3 Tennessee on Tuesday night:

How do you like me now,
Now that I’m on my way?
Do you still think I’m crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love me
But I always dreamed about living in your radio
How do you like me now?

 

It’s been years since country music grasped my attention, and Toby Keith makes my blood boil, but that refrain rang in my head around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

All the naysayers expected the Cats to self-destruct by now. UK’s fans, administration and boosters were “insane” for at worst running former coach Tubby Smith off, or at the least allowing him to flee for Minnesota.

Well, how do you like us, now? Minnesota media? National media? Local media? Dick Vitale? Tubby Smith? Billy Gillispie bashers?

I love it, and I realize this very limited squad is still only 8-9 and not making the NCAA Tournament unless it does one of two things: 1.) Win about 10 of their next 12 regular games, or 2.) Win the Southeastern Conference Tournament title.

And let me be the first to say that Alternative No. 1 has no chance of happening, but No. 2 is very realistic. I’m optimistic enough to think that if UK can beat the hands-down top team in the league (Tennessee) then the Cats can beat any team in the league. But they still haven’t won a road game. So, to expect more than just a couple of their SEC road games (LSU, South Carolina, Auburn?) to go their way would be overly optimistic.

But on a neutral court — if you call 25,000 rabid UK fans in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome a neutral court — I think UK is as good as any team in the conference, and I like their odds of playing on Selection Sunday.

For that matter, if UK had played either of their two SEC losses at home, or even CATlanta, they would have won those two nailbiters. Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado — who played an incredibly dominant game — would have been called for at least a couple of contact fouls on any of his 10 blocked shots at The Hump. And at least a few of the borderline charge/blocking calls that went against the Cats in Gainesville might have gone the other way at Rupp Arena.

Point is, this team was never as bad as the haters hoped. They were playing with half a deck — no Jodie Meeks, no Derrick Jasper, a limited Joe Crawford, a battered Patrick Patterson, a disinterested Alex Legion — and learning a new system.

Now, they’ve turned the corner and are calling themselves a family. And Gillispie has done what Tubby Smith couldn’t with twice the talent the last two years: beat a top 10 team, coach a team who makes free throws consistently and infuse life into a fan base on the brink.

And Tubby Smith has lost two in a row — well on his way to four losses in five games, and maybe five in a row if Michigan can man up – while playing to the level of his competition and still hasn’t defeated a team of note.

Even Patrick Reusse has opened his eyes.

The Cats are re-writing a lot of uninformed columns from a few weeks ago, so why not re-write the song with more fitting lyrics:

 

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that the Cats are on their way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like me now? 

When the Cats played Tennessee
I heard you lost all sanity
Never imagined they’d make it this far
Then Tubby lost two in a row
Aint it a cruel and funny show?
He took our dreams and tore them apart.

He’s on the phone
And we’re on our own
No Final Four in 10 years
Mitch’s phone starts ringin
Who could that be singin
It’s Billy G, with our wake up call!

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that we’re on our way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldn’t make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like us now?

Tell us baby …
We will play on …

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Blue Goggles, College Basketball, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.