The rivalry between these two schools outside the traditional boundaries that the two coaches, Rick Pitino of Louisville Kentucky and John Calipari, just do not love each other. The bad blood existed between them for several years, but only a few months ago has risen to a new level when Calipari made statements about his team is the only really matters in the state of Kentucky. Clearly annoyed, Pitino, who was head coach at UK from 1989-1997, said that he did not have time for jealous, wicked, ignorant or paranoid - obviously beats Calipari.
Both teams, who met for a total of 43 times in history (Kentucky leads 29-14), were central in Lexington last New Year's Eve, and the Wildcats prevailed 69-62 in the finals. Obviously, not enough drama, the game also presents a lot of interesting pieces and some outstanding performances, as UofL Russ Smith scored a career-high 30 points at the top of the Cardinals back from an early 15-point deficit, while the UK, Michael Kidd Gilchrist entered the monster double -double with 24 points and 19 rebounds. Both teams were trying to find their shooting touch, the Cardinals hit 32.3 percent of their attempts and the Wildcats the ball only 29.8 percent of them, but the hosts dominated the glass (57-31), the dominant users of second chance points, 20-6, as a result.
Louisville is 30.09 this season and the Cardinals won the tournament in the Big East Conference for the second time in four years with a 50-44 victory over Cincinnati in the championship game. Club Pitino said the narrow victory over Davidson (69-62) and New Mexico (59-56) in two or three rounds of the tournament NCAA, then won a double-digit victory over Michigan State head series (57-44) in the West Regional semifinals. This paved the way to the maps that will be taken former Gators Billy Donovan of Florida Pitino students in the regional final last Saturday, and the cards were saying 72-68 triumph. Consequently, Louisville is in Final Four for the ninth time, the first since 2005, and an overall assessment teams in the Big Dance is $ 64-39. UofL has two NCAA titles to his credit (1980, 1986).
Pitino led the last six, four teams, and is the first (official), the coach in the history had three different teams to the national semifinals. Despite the tension between him and Calipari, Pitino has recently talked about his respect for Kentucky, "I look like in Kentucky, and as I look at their coaching staff, I marvel at perfection. I respect perfection. So I have great respect for excellence."
He is also proud to say that his team never doubted, "What's going on, you can not lose confidence. I kept saying to children:" We will be Final Four. Winning the Big East tournament, you go to the Final Four, "and they did."
Kentucky, perhaps the best team in the country, and his 36-2 record a year, certainly confirms this. Wildcats won his forty-fifth SEC title this year will be a perfect 16-0 in the league, but dropped 71-64 decision to Vanderbilt in the slope of the tournament title of the conference. As the first overall seed in the tournament, NCAA, the UK has notched double-digit victory over Western Kentucky (81-66), Iowa (87-71), Indiana (102-90) and Baylor (82-70) to reach its second consecutive Final Four, and 15th overall. "Cats 109-46 in this case for many years and has seven national championships to their credit (1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996 (under Pitino), 1998).
Calipari is wrapping up his third year in Lexington, and has the reputation of 100-14 at the school. As already mentioned, this is the second consecutive year in which he has his team in the Final Four, and even his original team was deep in the tournament, reaching the top eight. How Pitino, Calipari also took three teams to the Final Four, but the appearance in 1996, Massachusetts, and the appearance in 2008, Memphis was later canceled due to violations of the rules of NCAA. However, Calipari is one of the best coaches in the country, and despite the differences that suffer throughout his career, he has an impressive 503-152.
Calipari wanted to minimize the competition, but with his latest comments: "When you play at this stage of the season, the profit or loss, it does not matter if it's against the school, which is located 12 miles from you, or thousands of miles in fact, has no value. We play in a fantasy basketball team, which has fantastic players who play a style that is aggressive and fast, they are really good. It does not matter how close they are to us, they are very, very good team and it will be a difficult game for us. "
Never one to shy away from attention, Calipari, who has never won a national title, was asked about this is the only team to do so, finally, on the hump, "I'm more concerned about our team played great and these guys are putting all this praise and things, "he continued," I just coach the team. (I want) for these fans, for these players, for this program. "
In Louisville to win this game, the pressure on the defensive end will be the key. The Cardinals, who did a great job in a meeting between the two earlier this season, returned only 60.8 points per game, and they are in fact, this figure dropped to 57.5 points in the tournament. The reality is that they simply can not work with a team as talented sports such as Kentucky, so that instead of relying on a star or two to provide the most offensive fireworks, enjoy a more balanced attack UofL with six players average at least nine 1 points per game. Kyle Kuric (12,7 points, 4,2 RPG) and Russ Smith (11.6 points) are the only two double digit scorers and the team has a positive but small, the edges and recovers (1.6) and turnover (1.5). Smith, who comes off the bench most of the time, energy has three double-digit scoring in this event, including the game-high 19 points in a recent victory over Florida.
Like its counterpart today, Kentucky, is also playing solid defense (60.6 points), but the Wildcats are much more potent offensive team (77.9 points). Their four opponents in this tournament looking to travel as much as 81 points, and took revenge on the Indiana one of the two losses this season, putting up 102 points in the third match of the tour. Britain, led by freshman sensation Anthony Davis (14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.6 BPG), but also outstanding performance does not end with him, as Doron Lamb (13.6 points per game FG percentage of 0471 three points), Terrence Jones (12.6 points, 7.2 RPG), Gilchrist Kidd (12.0 points, 7,6 RPG), Marquis Teague (10.0 points per game, 4.8 assists per game) and Darius Miller (10.0 points per game) everyone is able to take the game on any given night. While at Baylor really won the battle on the boards over the weekend (34-32), Kentucky, is one of the best teams in restoring the nation to require a differential 7.1. Kidd, Gilchrist became the top scorer in the last two games, while Davis led an attempt to rebound in the last three years.
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