I have the good fortune of being able to attend both the Friday and Sunday games. Meeting a childhood friend who lives near Milwaukee. Wondering which posters may be going and how many fans do you think UK will have there?
UK fans in Milwaukee
- Thread starter Kyhoward
- Start date
Sounds like a blast have fun!
Based on the responses in this thread, maybe 15 or 20 fans?
It's only a 7 hour drive. Get your butts up there.
If yal see a cheese head kick them in the nuts and tell them special delivery from a Bears fan.
I'm just assuming there will be a ton of Illini fans there. Along with them having the highest ceiling of any of the teams we can face there, it's why I prefer we don't play them.
^^Agree with that. Milwaukee is what 90 minutes from Chicago. Illinois has a pretty rabid fan base for the amount of success the program has had. I worry a little there will be a ton of Illinois fans, and UK fans will plan skip Milwaukee and plan on going the next weekend in Indy. Plus, like I said elsewhere, I’ve never seen a fan base more confident about its draw than what I saw from online Illini fans Sunday. No fear or worry at all about kentucky
Yep, much prefer to play Xavier or Texas if we take care of business in our first game.
Congrats. I am envious. But really live it up for all of us that won't be there. GBB
I said this to another poster who complained about UK being on upset Alert. We have won one tournament game in 4 years. No one fears UK anymore.
I mean, we like our draw mostly because of getting to play in Milwaukee and then potentially Indy, plus (at least for me) avoiding Drake as our #11 seed. Considering that UK would have to be knocked out for us to make it to Indy, we’d be playing in front of very Illini-friendly crowds in both locations. We also lost to our region’s #2 seed on a buzzer beater in a game where we shot HORRIBLY, and Houston is arguably the least scary #1 seed.
However, getting a favorable draw obviously in no way means it isn’t difficult … I think all Illini fans know we’d be underdogs vs. Kentucky and that we’re more than capable of losing in the First Round, haha. I think we got as good of a draw as we could have hoped for, but getting to play Kentucky is not a main reason why at all.
We are a very successful regular season program (top 10-15 in most metrics related to winning percentage, AP Poll appearances, conference titles, etc.) with only 5 Final Fours and 0 National Championships to show for it.
We hate everyone and ourselves! 🤣 But yes, that loss to UK was rough. Shockingly, that’s the last time we’ve played.
We could lose to Illinois but they're one of the most underachieving programs in the country. They rarely win big games. The danger with them is that they will occasionally get hot and have a game where you think "whoa where has that been?" but then they regress to the mean and lose two or three in a row to mediocre teams. UK should not lose to that team, and I'll be surprised if they get by Texas or Illinois but their sheer unpredictability makes them dangerous.
This actually goes back to 1949 and 1951.
Kentucky played Illinois in Eastern Regional Final, which was Final Four then, and the Chicago Sports Media trashed UK for not playing anyone and wrote how much trouble UK was in against the Illini.
www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/statistics/Games/19490322Illinois.html
76-47 in 49
www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/statistics/games/19510324Illinois.html
76-74 in 51 which means Illinois was second best team.
Well I am currently in Milwaukee for work but fly back home on Thursday. Trip was booked and scheduled weeks before the brackets came out. If I knew then I would have extended my trip to Saturday.
They also weren't happy with us "stealing" AD from them.
I actually think everthing you wrote is similar to what some UK fans thought from a UK perspective when the brackets came out.
Was thinking that may have been the last time
Two programs that just don't play one another in any sport
Good luck!
I just do not like when we play in Indy. Just bad voodoo crap anytime we play there. Hopefully we can beat that curse this year.
I remember UK fans not showing up in Des Moines, Iowa in 2016 when we were a 4 and Big 10 Champions Indiana showed out as the 5 seed. We lost in the round of 32 to Indiana and I remember the players asking where BBN was after the first game.
But we got really screwed in 2003 as the #1 seed. We had to play Wisconsin and Marquette in Minneapolis. Talk about utter BS.
It doesn’t look like there will be tons of UK fans there. The KFund allows 2 tickets to first round games to donors ranked in top 500. The first weekend allotment is always the least because there are 8 teams.
This year I needed more tickets so I called the KFund to see if I could get more. They gave me 6 more and all 8 are in the first 10 rows.
KFund also asked if I needed any of the UK block of hotel rooms.
Hopefully all this has to do with the majority of the Athletic Department will not be traveling to Milwaukee because they are in charge of the Lexington games plus the women are playing in Lex as well this weekend.
This year I needed more tickets so I called the KFund to see if I could get more. They gave me 6 more and all 8 are in the first 10 rows.
KFund also asked if I needed any of the UK block of hotel rooms.
Hopefully all this has to do with the majority of the Athletic Department will not be traveling to Milwaukee because they are in charge of the Lexington games plus the women are playing in Lex as well this weekend.
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I'd love to go, but ticket prices for these early round games are ridiculous. You'd be dropping a grand for a family of 4. Hell, regular season home games aren't much better. I'll watch from home and have a better view, better food, and better beer.
