Kentucky, Cincy face first meeting in 15 years
By Pat Forde, ESPN.com
INDIANAPOLIS -- Kentucky and Cincinnati haven't played each other in basketball for 15 years, but that hardly matters. The Rivalry That Isn't does not need actual games to keep it alive.
In the greater Cincinnati area, fans of the longtime powerhouses contest it every day. Which is why the area is in an absolute dither over the NCAA Tournament second-round Wildcats-Bearcats matchup Saturday in the RCA Dome. This game is big to the players because it's an elimination game; it's huge to the fans because it's a bragging-rights game.
The Ohio River is all that separates Cincinnati and the Bluegrass State. The Midwest and five-way chili on one side, the South and aged bourbon on the other. It's a major geographic dividing line, but it hardly keeps these warring allegiances from intermingling.
The Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky, and the 'Nati itself is rife with Big Blue fans. Kentucky house flags flap in Queen City subdivisions, and thousands of Northern Kentucky residents work in Cincy -- bringing their Cattitude with them.
"You don't really like the people over the river," said Bearcats guard Ryan Patzwald, a Cincinnati native. "That's just the way I was brought up."
Both Cincinnati daily papers, the Enquirer and the Post, have regular Kentucky basketball beat writers. The city's TV stations routinely cover UK as well. Sports talk radio is a mixed bag of Kentucky, Cincy and Xavier topics -- and this week it's full of woofing about this second-round NCAA game.
"It's kind of a dream game," said Cincinnati strongman Jason Maxiell, who got a smack-talking call this week from former Bearcat Ruben Patterson and former Wildcat Derek Anderson, now teammates with the Portland Trailblazers. "It's Kentucky vs. UC. It's a state rivalry."
The Rivalry That Isn't begins on the cultural level. Cincinnatians have long regarded Kentucky with cosmopolitan disdain, looking down on their country cousins to the south. Hillbilly stereotypes are the popular pejoratives.
Northern Kentucky got Cincy's airport but also some of its blight. Although native Kentuckian Larry Flynt started his Hustler porn empire in Cincy, the city subsequently booted all strip clubs out of town. Today you have to go to Covington or Newport, Ky., to find a lap dance.
Kentuckians have generally responded to Cincinnati's smugness with the only weapon at their disposal -- hoops superiority.
Cincy has Oscar Robertson and a couple 1960s national titles on its side. Kentucky has seven titles and all the entitlement one program can handle.
The difference in program expectations can be seen in the attendance of their celebrity fans -- Bearcats backer and Cincinnati native Nick Lachey was in the RCA Dome on Thursday, cheering boisterously in a red No. 52 jersey; Wildcats backer Ashley Judd isn't messing with the first or second rounds. She's a Sweet 16 girl.
Most maddening of all to Cincinnati fans, Kentucky has the luxury of ignoring the Bearcats.
They're 85 miles apart and have have played 36 times over the years but haven't met since 1990. Word is that there was a signed contract to play four more games during the 1990s but that Kentucky didn't honor the deal.
In the meantime, Kentucky has played 10 home games in Cincinnati -- but none of those games has been against the Bearcats. They've played Ohio, Dayton, Wright State, Kent State, Marshall, Ball State -- even Vanderbilt. But never Cincinnati.
"I'm not going to get into a bunch of discussions about what's what," UK coach Tubby Smith said. "We have our schedule, our guidelines and our reasons for scheduling who we schedule.
"We get 23,000-plus at Rupp Arena every game. It's not like we need to play them to help our attendance," he added.
Bottom line -- UK doesn't want the game, doesn't need the game and will not play the game in the foreseeable future. Smith has no interest in adding the Bearcats to the current non-conference diet of Louisville, Indiana, North Carolina and Kansas.
Clearly, Cincinnati has more to gain from the game than does Kentucky. Power forward Eric Hicks said he thought the Bearcats might be able to win some converts -- then thought better of the notion.
"I doubt if you could change a Kentucky fan's mind," Hicks said. "They'll probably brush it off and start going to their history."
Bob Huggins likes Smith and probably hopes to win him over and eventually resume the series. So the Combative One treads lightly on the topic of Kentucky ducking his program.
"We've talked about it," he said. "It just hasn't worked. They have some non-conference games that they're contractually into for a while. (Smith) has told me he thinks it would be a good game for basketball in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky."
But now, in the NCAA Tournament? With Cincinnati in the scary underdog role and Kentucky looking like a vulnerable favorite? That's a worst-case scenario for the perpetually concerned Big Blue fans.
Bob Huggins can't get UK on his schedule.
The Rivalry That Isn't gains further spice from the programs' starkly different philosophies. Cincinnati is an uptight town with an anything-goes basketball program. The state of Kentucky was built on vices -- whiskey, tobacco and thoroughbred wagering -- but cherishes its uptight basketball program.
The Bearcats were literally laid-back Friday. With Huggins a few feet away in their locker room, swingman Armein Kirland did television interviews while flat on his back on a table, head propped up by a stack of towels.
In another part of the room, guard Jihad Muhammad's Marley-esque dreds flowed down his neck. It's impossible to envision them surviving under Smith, a coach who once banned facial hair on his team.
While Cincinnati is downright flip with the media, Kentucky regards it with a caution that borders on suspicion. Smith kept his touted freshman class off-limits from interviews until March.
After the first-round games, some of Cincinnati's assistant coaches were seen in the wee hours of Friday morning at a thumping downtown Indy club, then taking in a 3 a.m. meal amid a throng of drunks at Steak & Shake. Tubby's bland collection of assistants probably turned in early after milk and cookies.
Huggins is the hard-living anti-establishment type with an outrageous potty mouth. Smith is so square he's divisible by four.
But they share one thing -- a love of physical, tenacious, tough basketball. This game could come down to which team can win the Toughman contest, and to find a way to execute offensively against merciless defense.
Regardless of strategy, the fans of both sides know one thing: they're finally going to play again, with huge stakes.
Said Hicks. "The game is on the schedule now."
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