It’s always so strange to me that people cheer on one and not the other. And even more strange when fans of one try ahd crap on the other or call out fans of the other sport. I’m a UK fan. I root for UK…in all sports. This divide of some people is the silliest thing.
It's because our basketball fanbase is insufferable. If you rolled up UNC, UL, UT fans into one fanbase, you would still come out better than UK b-ball fans. By far the worst fanbase in college sports.
Secondly, the same boomers in this thread pretending like what Stoops has done is nothing short of miraculous; are the same fans who conveniently ignore the fact that UK basketball success has been completely built on playing in a conference that never gave a crap about basketball. Face it, your success is equivalent to Louisville winning in Big East football after Miami, Virginia Tech left to go to the ACC. Once that happened, UL only got BCS games because they beat teams like USF, Syracuse, Cincy (when they were horrible) and UCONN. And somehow thats supposed to be impressive. Just like UK basketball has taken it's success from winning in a conference were college basketball came in 3rd of importance AFTER college baseball. UK routinely won 25+ games while the rest of the conference averaged what 15?
In fact it wasn't until a few years ago the SEC (after decades of having an absolute bottom tier basketball conference) decided to actually put some money into basketball. When the commissioner then told the SEC AD's to at least pretend to care about basketball and put some money and effort in. Once that happened, UK has had borderline success. Which brings me to my next point. Whats more likely? Cal forgot how to coach? Or the schedule just got harder? No longer the days can UK basketball roll in and beat up on a weak conference that never gave a shit. Now you actually have programs that wanna compete. And guess what...UK basketball has found itself in an actual battle to be relevant. No longer can UK just show up and roll over these mid-major programs masquerading as Power schools. So while North Carolina built a real reputation from playing in a real conference, UK's success was built on a hollow foundation that is now crumbling away.
Finally, the revenue trumps all. UK has one of the highest revenues in college basketball, and they barely break even. While most basketball programs operate in the red. If it wasn't for the football program, our 5 star basketball players would be walking to the game. Forget flights because they couldnt afford a bus.
I look forward to another decade from now when people look at the bottom ESPN scroll to see college basketball scores and recall fondly when college basketball was on TV and relevant. Because thats where it's headed. No one watches this shit until March, especially once the boomers are gone.