The stage is set.
ESPN College Gameday is in the house.
By the time the game tips off at 6 p.m. this evening, the home crowd inside cozy but raucous Neville Arena will be worked into a frenzy.
The reason for all the hubbub?
Kentucky, which always draws sellout crowds, is in town, and this Southeastern Conference grudge match has a lot riding on the result. This one has a bit of a different feel however, with the homestanding Auburn Tigers coming in as the favored team.
After 13th-ranked Auburn thrashed No. 11 South Carolina 101-61 Wednesday night, the Tigers enter action tonight with a 20-5 record, 9-3 in the SEC, tied with the Gamecocks (21-4 overall) for second place, a half-game behind 9-2 Alabama.
For one to say the win over South Carolina was impressive would be an enormous understatement. The Tigers broke open the game in the second half, led by their imposing front line. Jaylin Williams, a 6-foot-8, 245 lb. senior, led Auburn with 23 points, including 5-for-7 from 3-point range. Johni Broome, a 6-10, 240-pounder, who transferred from Morehead State a year ago, scored 21 points and drained 4-of-5 threes. Broome leads the
Tigers in scoring and rebounds, averaging 16.2 points per game and 8.8 boards.
The game presents a huge challenge for (17-7, 7-4 SEC) Kentucky, which could desperately use a Quad 1 win to boost their NCAA Tournament resume. The 22nd-ranked Cats are also coming off a rather easy home court win after cruising past Ole Miss 75-63 on Tuesday night.
The matchup on the Plains will be far from easy. UK did defend and rebound better than they had in recent games in the win over the Rebels, but the Tigers will be difficult to handle on their home court, which may be the toughest road environment in the SEC.
Auburn is deep and balanced – they have 10 players playing more than 14 minutes per game – the Tigers always play hard, they play a physical style and crash the boards, they have talented guards, and the lone SEC team undefeated at home this season. Auburn is 13-0 in Neville Arena this season, with the average margin of victory over 20 points.
You can bet that Auburn coach Bruce Pearl will have his team and the rabid fans fired up to knock off the Cats for the fourth consecutive time in the friendly confines of Neville Arena
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CAL VS. PEARL ALWAYS A TREAT — Kentucky coach John Calipari and his adversary this evening have a history as well.
It can be traced back to when Pearl was the Tennessee bench boss, and Cal was in charge at Memphis, and they went 2-2 in head-to-head meetings. It remains debatable whether the two really despise each other, or if their battle of words over the years is more for show. The answer may lie somewhere in the middle, but suffice it to say, both are fierce competitors and want to beat the other badly.
In his career versus Kentucky, Pearl is 10-17 overall, 6-8 at Auburn, and 4-9 while at Tennessee.
The first time Pearl faced UK, then coached by Tubby Smith, was a memorable game, especially for fans of Chris Lofton. The former Kentucky Mr. Basketball and Mason County great scored 31 points, including 7-for-10 from 3-point range, in a 75-67 Tennessee win at Rupp Arena on Feb. 7, 2006.
(On a side note to that one, this guy was there covering the game for the Ledger Independent and full disclosure, sitting at press row quietly rooting for Lofton.)
Just 20 days prior to the UT win at UK, Pearl and Calipari squared off for the first time at the FedEx Forum in Memphis. The Tigers held off the Volunteers 88-79, and
when the two teams tangled the following season, the war of words was on between the two fiery coaches.
The pregame banter featured Pearl saying that he was trying to make Tennessee a national program, before adding, “There is no program in the country that respects us less than Memphis.”
Pearl’s comments came after Calipari complained that because the game wasn’t on national TV, future games with Tennessee didn’t need to be on Memphis’ schedule. Calipari countered by saying he wasn’t trying to create any kind of animosity of hatred, and hinted that Pearl was making false accusations.
When the dust settled, Pearl must’ve gotten through to his team, which rolled past Memphis 76-58, with Lofton again leading the Vols. The All-American tossed in a career-high 34 points, including six threes, in a game that was never close.
The third meeting between Cal and Pearl was on Feb. 23, 2008, and ESPN College Gameday was in Memphis for the showdown between the two top-ranked teams in the nation. Memphis was 26-0 but second-ranked Tennessee pulled out a 66-62 win in a game that Calipari said was one that got away.
In 2009, just a couple of months before Calipari was hired at Kentucky, he evened the series between the two with a 54-52 Memphis win in Knoxville.
In Calipari’s first meeting as the UK coach against Pearl, the Cats, led by John Wall’s 24 points, defeated UT 73-62 on Feb. 13, 2010 in Rupp Arena. That victory came after Calipari’s preseason remarks at SEC Basketball Media Days when he was asked about the friction with Pearl. His reply was that it began with turf battles in recruiting, saying that Pearl was trying to take over the state, which he conceded other than Memphis.
“I’m not recruiting Knoxville, but you’re recruiting Memphis, that’s why I didn’t want to play him in a home-and-home. What good does it do for me to go to Knoxville, other that to play in front of 22,000 people in Orange? …I can’t stand the color.”
Kentucky fans have to love that last comment.
But two weeks after the UK win at home, Pearl got his only win against a Calipari-coached Kentucky squad, winning 74-65 in Knoxville, but the Cats exacted revenge in the SEC Tournament in Nashville with a resounding 74-45 blowout victory in the semifinals.
Calipari and the Cats swept the series vs. the Vols in 2011, with the 73-61 win at Rupp getting a bit ugly at the end of the first half. Several fans at Rupp were taunting Pearl, leading to have security escort him to the locker room and his assistant coaches were seen jawing with fans at the start of the second half.
The final time Pearl coached against UK while he was at Tennessee resulted in another Kentucky win, and two weeks later, he was fired. In a game that was less than pretty, the Cats won 64-58, causing a dejected Pearl to say, “Getting swept by Kentucky is disappointing. I obviously have not done my job in our rivalry with Kentucky.”
After Pearl landed the Auburn job in 2014, Pearl admitted that part of the animosity between the two was just for rivalry’s sake, and it made the game “more interesting.”
Note that he said “part of the animosity” however. There remains a definite rivalry between Calipari and Pearl, and this is one game both want to win in the worst way.
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A UNIQUE TALENT AND A CHAMPION – Sorry to hear of the passing of one of my all-time favorite Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday.
Condolences go out to the family and friends of Don Gullett, who made the rapid rise to the Reds at the age of 19 with an impressive showing in the spring of 1970, less than a year removed from his stellar prep career. He was born in the tiny hamlet of Lynn in Greenup County, Ky. and became a high school sports legend in the Commonwealth before the Reds drafted him in the first round (14th overall) of the 1969 MLB June Amateur Draft.
Gullett still holds what is considered to be an unbreakable Kentucky high school football record when he scored 72 points in a game (11 touchdowns and kicked six extra points) for McKell High School in South Shore. He received scholarship offers from numerous college football powers, including Alabama and Notre Dame, and Gullett also achieved all-state honors in baseball and basketball during his senior year.
The fireballing southpaw appeared in 44 games for the Reds during his rookie campaign in 1970 and finished 5-2 with a 2.43 ERA. Unfortunately, Gullett was hampered by injuries throughout his career and a bout with hepatitis in 1972, his lone losing season when he went 9-10.
He rebounded the next season, going 18-8 with seven complete games and four shutouts. He was 17-11 in 1974 (10 CG and three shutouts), and helped lead the Reds to a World Series title in 1975, going 15-4 with a 2.42 ERA. Even though he was limited to 22 starts because of injury, Gullett still tossed eight complete games including three shutouts, and he was 2-1 in the postseason.
After another injury-marred season in 1976, which limited Gullett to 20 starts and 126 innings, he finished with a still respectable 11-3 record and 3.00 ERA, and won a pair of games in the postseason as well. Following the Big Red Machine’s sweep of the New York Yankees in
the Fall Classic to give them back-to-back titles, Gullett surprised many observers by signing with the Yankees.
He was instrumental in helping New York win the 1977 championship, going 14-4 in 22 starts. The Bronx Bombers repeated in 1978, but Gullett suffered a double tear of his rotator cuff during the season, which ended his career at the age of 27.
Gullett’s outstanding big-league career included a 109-50 record and a 3.11 ERA. He tossed 44 complete games and threw 14 shutouts, numbers unheard of in baseball these days. Gullett also struck out 921 in 1,390 innings, and pitched in five World Series. He was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2002, during his tenure as the Reds pitching coach from 1993-2005.
Not only was Gullett an extraordinary talent, but he was also well-respected as a person by his teammates and the media who covered his career.
“There wasn’t a better athlete and a better person than Don Gullett. He was as good an athlete as I’ve ever seen and the biggest competitor I’ve ever known,” said his battery mate with the Reds, Johnny Bench, who was 22 years old when Gullett made his debut in 1970.
Hal McCoy, the Hall of Fame baseball writer who covered the Reds from 1973-2009 for the Dayton Daily News, wrote a lovely tribute, including the following: “He was one of the good guys, a really, really good guy.
Whomever he pitches for in Heaven, that team won’t lose many when he starts. And the football and basketball teams will be blessed, too.”
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES – To my son, Chris, who celebrates his 44th tomorrow, which is nearly unbelievable. I realize I’m an old guy, but where does the time go?
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“If you’re born in Alabama, you have to pick a team. And whether we play them in softball, volleyball or whatever, we want to beat them. Because we are – and I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying it – we’re like the stepchild. We’re never going to be Alabama, but we want to beat them every time we play them. We’re kind of like Oklahoma State, UCLA, Kansas State. There’s nothing wrong with it. Auburn’s a great school.” – Charles Barkley
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“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.” — Mark Twain
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