BTI’s Rants and Ramblings: Who Will Be This Year’s Unsung Hero?
It seems that very often in the UK-UL series (not always), there is a guy on the UK roster that comes through and plays a key role in the game without people expecting it. An unsung hero. Here are just a few examples:
2012: Ryan Harrow
-Yes, Kentucky lost this game, but if there was 1 positive we took away it was the play of Harrow. 17 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and most importantly, no turnovers. Many people thought Harrow had turned the corner. Of course we know that didn’t happen.
2010: Josh Harrellson
-Maybe the most unsung of heros, Harrellson at that point had a career high of 15 points. He scored 23. Harrellson never made 10 or more field in his career until this game and never did after. UL just had no answers for Jorts that game.
2006: Jodie Meeks
-It what had to be the worst played game in series history, Meeks was the star. Yes, he became a prolific scorer, but at that point in his freshman year, he had only scored in double figures once. Against Louisville, he poured in 18. Very unexpected.
2005: Sherray Thomas
-Huh? Really? Oh yeah, in the 2005 contest, only 2 UK players scored in double figures. Rajon Rondo and…….Sherray Thomas.
1992: Gimel Martinez
-In his other 3 games against UL, Martinez scored 5 points total. In the 1992 contest, he scored 14. Only 2 other times in his career did he score more in a game. UK won by 20 in Freedom Hall by the way.
Those are just a few, but I wonder who you might think this year’s unsung hero might be. How to define who might qualify is a tough task, but I generally think the guy can’t be one of your two best players. Which means to me, Julius Randle and Willie Cauley-Stein can not be the answer this year. You could probably argue both Harrisons and James Young shouldn’t qualify either, but I think against UL the most likely candidates to be highly successful are Randle and Stein. So, I think all 3 starting guards could work as unsung heros for this year’s game. Either way, just want to know what you think. Who will be the guy that could surprise us with a big game Saturday? Maybe score a career high.
20 Comments for BTI’s Rants and Ramblings: Who Will Be This Year’s Unsung Hero?
My favorite was the year that Woo came out and got like 11 rebounds, and then made his legendary post-game speech on the radio about how beating Louisville was the most important thing in life or something like that. That was the birth of his legend as a UK favorite!
Woo had great games against UL at least twice and maybe three times (though memory fades and I don’t feel like Googling right now). Woo OWNED UL; for that matter if his career stats had been close to his UL stats, he’d have been more than just a fan favorite.
I would have to vote for Jorts. Jorts going for 23 pts. and 15 rebounds at the YUM, including dunks and hitting 3’s, was great.
The real winner Saturday will be the bar owners in Louisville. With the basketball game and the cards playing in the criminal bowl the same day, the city of Louisville better be stocking up on the Crown Royal.
Polson, senior year, a true Kentuckian, he will want this very badly, like Jorts did, even tho Jorts wasn’t from the Ky, and with Andrews foul problems, Jarrod is likely gonna have a chance to shine!
Would love to see it!! Polson deserves a great Louisville game!! Go Big Blue!!!
Patrick Sparks 04 25 pts 3 ast 5 rebounds against the 13th ranked UL team 60-58 HUGE AT LOUISVILLE
Sparks getting away with awalk was the play of the day.
Might want to watch that video again. Are you still that butt hurt about UK beating your team almost 1 years ago?
I always think it is funny to hear UL fans cry about traveling calls. A UL player took 2 giant steps in the back court during UL’s last position before Sparks made his shots, with no traveling call against them. No team fouled more then UL, without a foul being called.
a u of L player getting away with a travel shortly before sparks did was also an awesome play.
Rex Chapman fresman year. No comparison. He spanked loserville single handedly.
26 pts at freedom (no call) hall.
My guess would be either Andrew Harrison or Dominique Hawkins.
wouldn’t be a ksr article without screwing up at least one guy’s name
Easy answer. Randle will be on the bench in foul trouble within first 8 minutes, Alex Poythress will step in and dominate chane benannon. AP becomes next Darius Miller (silent killer from the bench)
Saturday will be show time for James Young. His quickness, height advantage and hot hand from the outside will pluck the Cards. He’s got an itchy trigger finga & a green light.
if we have an unsung hero, it’s dominique hawkins. maybe it’s tied with a few seconds left, they get it into randle and louisville triple or quadruple teams randle, and the last person you’d expect to make a hard cut would be hawkins, and he gets an open layup for the win!!!
but idk if we’ll have an unsung hero if we win. i think randle and WCS will abuse them inside. our guards had better defend well…
Alex will have a big game, SPARKS DIDN’T TRAVEL. That’s all LOSERVILLE has to hang on to because their city sucks, the fans suck, the coaches suck, the players suck (in between their drug fix), their lying ass AD sucks, their schedule sucks, their FB schedule sucks and look at the women in LOSERVILLE, the ugliest women in Kentucky live in LOSERVILLE.
Not saying it will be, but I’d love to see it be Dakari or Marcus…both guys have kind of fallen away from the pack a bit despite both having tremendous potential imho…like to see a breakout game for either or both
Willis. Cal will finally wake up after seeing we can’t score against their zone and put Willis in and let him play more than 2 minutes. He hits 4 threes and gets 5 rebounds and forces them out of the zone.