Did Louisville head coach Rick Pitino flip off United Kingdom faithful?

In men’s basketball, Kentucky has now beaten Louisville four in a row, eight of nine and 11 of 14.

Sometimes, the best measure of a team is whether or not they’re able to beat quality opponents without playing their best.

Guard Tyler UIis of the Kentucky Wildcats directs his teammates during the game against the Louisville Cardinals at Rupp Arena on Saturday. Then Louisville had its chance. 3 Michigan State on December 2.

United Kingdom scored only six points in a six-minute stretch that enabled the Cardinals to cut their deficit to 65-64 with 5:30 left on Lee’s 3-pointer. But we’ve got to understand we’ve got Wake Forest coming up. Seconds later, Louisville led 34-30 but from that point forward and into the early second half, the Wildcats went on a 22-2 run to grab their largest lead at 52-36.

“The first half, we gave up a lot of baskets, a lot of offensive rebounds, a lot of 3s”, Lee said. That’s not possible. As Pitino noted after the game, “We hate to lose to these guys”.

The Battle of the Bluegrass proved to be a back-and-fourth fight for the majority of the game with both teams starting a little tight, committing some uncharacteristic turnovers and forcing shots.

A few leftover ramblings from a great rivalry game that lived up to the hype… We saw Kentucky go up by as many as 16 points, but of course this game can never end a blow-out. Thirty footers? Really? UofL would contain Jamal Murray to three of them and 12 points.

Kentucky’s second-leading scorer, Isaiah Briscoe, sat out after hurting his ankle during pregame warmups. The Cards hit four free throws – two foul shots and two technicals – and took a four-point lead.

Saturday’s game may have been the best of the UK-U of L matchups in the John Calipari vs. Rick Pitino era. He’d break down the defense and get it to a big man. The Louisville point guard finished with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting. For the record, Pitino said that was not the case, the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Tim Sullivan wrote.

Pitino did not publicly defend himself after the game, opting not to appear for his postgame news conference and sending out associate head coach Ralph Willard in his place. I would also like to mention that I attend the University of Louisville, but didn’t even follow Louisville basketball until my junior year of high school.

After Louisville’s 75-73 loss at Kentucky on Saturday, video surfaced on the Internet of Pitino gesturing to the crowd as he walked up the runway to the locker room. “My recollection was a ‘We r #1”. Chinanu Onuaku ripped a rebound from Skal Labissiere’s grasp and scored to reduce the Kentucky lead to six points with 9:03 left. This game makes me nervous each year and knowing Briscoe would be out heightened my sense of anxiety for this game.