We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months. You have too. In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while. Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage. Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face. Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep. Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style. The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go. Are you? To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month. We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er. Or whatever. Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with. That’s the hope, at least. We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from the regionals of the NCAA Tournament. Enjoy.
NCAA Regionals
Dateline: 1983 NCAA Regional Finals – Kentucky vs. Louisville
Context: With Kentucky playing West Virginia in the East Region Final today between regional rivals that don’t seem to care much for each other, we thought it would make for a nice segue to one of our favorite historical games in the same round involving UK. In 1983, the NCAA brackets fell in such a way that intrastate rivals Kentucky and Louisville met in the regional finals with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Many of our younger readers are probably thinking… ok, so what? Great question. The “what” is that the two teams had not played in 24 seasons due to Kentucky’s refusal to play the Cards despite Denny Crum’s best attempts to broker a game between the schools separated by 70 miles of I-64. Imagine if Duke and North Carolina hadn’t played for a quarter century because UNC didn’t think Duke was worth its time. Needless to say, the hype for this game, both nationally and locally was through the roof, as you can see in this preview piece hosted by Brent Musburger.
As for the game itself, it was a spirited affair, and worth every bit of the pre-game hype. The two teams battled through 39+ minutes of back and forth basketball until the following sequence ended regulation.
The overtime period wasn’t quite so thrilling, but some Louisville fans still say it was the most meaningful five minutes in the history of the Cardinal program, even more so than their two national titles in 1980 and 1986.