LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) – Sports are just sports – except when they aren’t. The University of Louisville women’s basketball team will face the University of Kentucky today at 1 p.m. and both programs, as they have been consistently in recent years, are nationally ranked.
Louisville comes in at No. 7 in the most recent Associated Press poll and Kentucky is No. 14. The game will be televised by ESPN.
In another national ranking, as a state, Kentucky ranks No. 33 in gender pay comparison. Women earn about 80 cents on the dollar what men earn for comparable jobs, and minority women almost 60 cents.
Women now are a majority at every major state university in Kentucky. Women make up a majority of faculty at both UK and U of L. At Louisville, a woman of color, Neeli Bendapudi, now serves as president.
So this game is important, because it puts excellence displayed by young women at these universities on a big stage.
Last year, when the UK men won a basketball game to advance to the NCAA Elite Eight and received a congratulatory Tweet from the governor, Louisville coach Jeff Walz called out the governor for not acknowledging his women’s team that did the same thing. He was attacked on the radio and criticized by the governor for his coaching abilities.
The fact is, this game is a success story in Kentucky. Louisville ranked third in the nation at 9,537 fans per game last season. Kentucky will host today’s game in Rupp Arena, where attendance should jump above 10,000.
Six of their meetings this decade have featured both teams nationally ranked, and twice they’ve both been in the top 10.
“That speaks volumes for what they’ve done there and what we’ve done here,” Walz said. “When you are 60 miles apart and you are able to put together top-15, top-20 teams together each year, it says a lot about basketball in this state.”
It has come a long way. Louisville used to play in high school gyms. Kentucky had a successful women’s program in the 1920’s, only to have women’s basketball abolished by the University Senate because, “it is too strenuous for girls.” It didn’t return to UK until 1974.
Under Jeff Walz, Louisville spent the last two seasons ranked in the Top 5 and has been to three Final Fours in the past 10 years, including the national championship game twice. At Kentucky, Matthew Mitchell has guided the Wildcats to 20 wins in 10 of the past 11 years and a 30-6 season in 2012-13.
Louisville has won the past three meetings between the two programs. Kentucky won five in a row before that. Louisville will be challenged to stop Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard, a preseason All-American who had 25 points and 10 rebounds in last year’s meeting. Kentucky will face a challenge in Louisville’s size.
Kentucky’s up-tempo, pressing style will tax a Louisville team that has been prone to turnovers. Kentucky will have to find a way to keep Louisville off the boards.
“I expect it to be a great game,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “Over the years, there haven’t been many that weren’t a great game. Of all the sports at Kentucky and Louisville, I’d venture to say that we (women’s basketball) would be close to the top for both teams being ranked. It’s seldom that we’re not both in the top 15. . . . And when you look at what WKU is doing . . . there’s a lot of great basketball being played in this state. . . . Hopefully we’ll draw 13,000-14,000 in the game, both programs deserve that.”
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