DULUTH, Ga. (WDRB) — In November, Kentucky and Louisville rolled out their basketball teams like two shiny new Cadillacs on the showroom floor.
The chrome gleamed. The paint sparkled. The brochures promised horsepower.
Kentucky’s Mark Pope looked over his roster and called it an “embarrassment of riches.”
At Louisville, where Pat Kelsey had a team ranked No. 11 in the preseason that climbed to No. 6 before the Thanksgiving turkey had been passed, the coach told its faithful the Cardinals should be “one of the most talented teams in the country.”
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
After some lean times for these programs, the postseason promised a parade.
Three months later, the parade route looks more like a detour.
The regular season ends today for the Commonwealth’s two proud basketball empires, and neither is arriving at the finish line quite the way anyone imagined.
Between them they’ve piled up 20 losses, a trainer’s room full of injuries, and enough frustrated nights to keep sports-talk radio humming until April.
Neither program was in the Associated Press Top 25 entering the final week of the season. In fact, they were tied for 27th, the basketball equivalent of sitting at the kids’ table.
Louisville, picked second in the ACC preseason poll, could finish as high as fifth with a win today at Miami. Or as low as eighth with a loss.
The Cardinals are expected to play without freshman star Mikel Brown Jr., ruled out for a second straight game with back issues. Brown will finish the regular season as the highest-scoring freshman in Louisville history and almost certainly the program’s first one-and-done player.
He’ll also have missed 10 of Louisville’s 31 games — nearly a third of the season.
It’s hard to run a sports car when one of the cylinders keeps disappearing.
Kentucky’s season has taken similar detours.
The Wildcats were picked second to Florida in the SEC preseason poll. They’ll face the Gators today at Rupp Arena, with Florida already having locked up the conference championship and installed as a 6.5-point favorite.
With a win, Kentucky could finish in a tie for fourth in the SEC.
With a loss, it could slip into a tie for ninth.
Their point guard, Jaland Lowe, managed meaningful minutes in only seven games before a shoulder injury shut him down.
Talented big man Jayden Quaintance appeared in only four games while recovering from a knee injury.
Two rosters assembled at modern college basketball prices.
Two seasons that never quite ran the way the sales brochure suggested.
Pope has taken heat from some Kentucky fans who believe he was slow to adjust to a roster that never quite fit the fast, free-flowing style he prefers. He’s 20-15 in two seasons in the SEC, and double-digit deficits have become routine.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey, one year removed from being named ACC Coach of the Year, has heard some of the same grumbling.
His team has gone 0-8 in Quad 1A games and has struggled to play the kind of sustained defense that would allow its offense to shine.
The numbers still like Louisville. The Cardinals rank No. 16 in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings and remain in the Top 25 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency — one of only 10 teams in the country that can say that.
But numbers don’t hang banners.
Wins do.
And in a season that began with talk of riches and national ambitions, both programs arrive at the final weekend still trying to figure out exactly what they are.
The postseason, of course, always offers redemption.
March is college basketball’s great illusionist. It can turn a struggling team into a legend in one weekend.
That possibility is the one thing keeping the engines idling in Lexington and Louisville.
Because if the regular season has shown anything, it’s that talent alone doesn’t guarantee the ride will be smooth.
Sometimes you buy the Cadillac. And spend the winter wondering why the check-engine light won’t turn off.
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