The Definition of Domination

I knew that I was going to ruffle some feathers (pun intended) when I decided to write this article but I still decided to do it anyway. What got me to think about the "domination" theme was the baseball Wildcat's victory of the baseball Cardinals last night. That almost completes a major sports sweep for this year. The Cats will go visit the Cards at their place for one more baseball game later this season (thank you Gangle) and then maybe the sweep will be complete. Let's reminisce about this season's football, basketball and baseball games:

• Football- 9/19/09 at Kentucky: Final Score 31-27. In a game that was much closer than predicted, the Cats beat the Cards who came back from a double digit deficit to make it a close one. Kentucky's defense stopped the Cards in the red zone multiple times while the Wildcats offense sputtered in the second half. There were some questionable calls on the Louisville sidelines but that problem has now been eliminated with the firing of coach Kragthorpe. This will be the first year for new coaches on both sides of the ball. Kentucky has won three in a row against the Cards but this year's game will be the most intense since Louisville brought Brian Brohm to Lexington for a monumental upset in 2007.
• Basketball- 1/2/10 at Kentucky: Final Score 71-62. Louisville brought a two game winning streak in the series with them into Rupp Arena against the new look Wildcats. It was a blow out early as Louisville failed to reach double digits until about 12 minutes into the game. The players were scrappy and intense in the beginning and Louisville looked out of sorts. They calmed down and it was 27-19 lead for the Cats after the first half. Louisville even took the lead for a short time in the second half but the Wildcats were too big, too fast and too strong. Next years game will be in the Cardinals new arena and Kentucky will again have a totally new team.
• Baseball- 4/6/10 at Kentucky: Final Score 5-0. The only blowout game of the year happened during the least likely of games. The #7 Louisville Cardinals came in with a record of 23-4 while Kentucky had struggled of late in a very powerful SEC and had a record of 19-10. The Cats pitching completely shut down the bats of the Cards in front of a crowd of 3,819, a big turnout for college baseball. There will be another game played at Louisville later in the season but you have to like what you see from the Cats early on.

This season has been utter domination so far, but what about historically? Glad you asked because it's more of the same. Kentucky owns the advantage in all three sports versus Louisville and the closest of the three is the football series, which the record is 13-9 with an advantage to the Wildcats. The baseball and basketball leads are both double digits and it would take a huge fall off on Kentucky's part for Louisville to make up ground and take the lead. I doubt it will ever happen.

Kentucky also owns more bowl game victories in football, more national championships in basketball, more victories over top 25 opponents in all three and more overall victories against any teams in all three sports.

While we can argue who is better year in and year out, historically Kentucky is much better. Even in recent records, and I am talking the past 10 years, Kentucky has Louisville beat in 2 out of the 3 sports, the outlier again being football (Louisville 6-4). The difference is that Kentucky already owns the football record and has made up considerable ground in the past three years.

There you have it, Kentucky dominates. Monster Mash called me an obnoxious UK fan on the phone last night when I pitched the article to him. This is a great example of the pot calling the kettle black since he has to throw in a Karen Sypher/Rick Pitno STD joke in every article that he mentions Louisville. Zing!