What impact will John Calipari’s exit have on the UK-Louisville sports rivalry?
However one feels toward the John Calipari coaching era at Kentucky, there was one area of success that endured from Cal’s Big Blue start (2009) to finish (2024):
He flat owned UK’s men’s basketball rivalry with intrastate foe Louisville.
Over 16 meetings against U of L, Calipari directed the Wildcats to 13 victories — including wins over the Cards in the 2012 NCAA Final Four and the 2014 Sweet 16.
In what turned out to be Calipari’s final season at UK in 2023-24, it was “rivalry business as usual” for Kentucky vs. Louisville. Four days before last Christmas, the Wildcats got 30 points from Antonio Reeves and trounced Kenny Payne’s Cardinals 95-76 at the KFC Yum Center.
That Kentucky victory in a high-profile men’s sport was par for the course for the 2023-24 UK-Louisville sports rivalry.
UK dominated the men’s sports, going 4-2 against U of L. The Wildcats men went to The Ville and beat the Cardinals in baseball, basketball and football. Competing in Lexington, Kentucky also scored a win against Louisville in tennis.
The only U of L men’s teams that defeated UK were soccer and swimming.
Conversely, Louisville scored a clean sweep over Kentucky in the women’s sports, winning in basketball, swimming and volleyball.
Inclement weather canceled a UK-U of L baseball game scheduled for Lexington on April 3 and a Cats-Cards softball game slated to be played in Louisville on April 10.
Put it all together, and the Cardinals enjoyed a 5-4 advantage over the Wildcats in 2023-24 in head-to-head meetings. It is the second time in the past three seasons that U of L has won the all-sports competition with UK by a 5-4 count.
Over the last seven school years, Kentucky now leads the combined head-to-head competition against Louisville 35-30-1.
Rivalry MVPs
If awards were handed out to the players and coaches who made the most dramatic impact on our state’s marquee college sports rivalry in 2023-24, the winners would be:
▪ Kentucky men’s sports rivalry MVP: Ryan Waldschmidt, baseball. The Wildcats junior outfielder hit two home runs and drove in six runs to spark UK to a 17-13 win at Louisville on April 16.
▪ Louisville men’s sports rivalry MVP: Gage Guerra, soccer. A junior forward, Guerra scored a goal in each half as the No. 7 Cardinals defeated the No. 19 Wildcats 4-2 on Sept. 5.
▪ Kentucky women’s sports rivalry MVP: Grace Frericks, swimming. In a 210-90 team loss, the UK sophomore led the Wildcats with 12 points scored, including a victory in the 200 backstroke (1:53.77).
▪ Louisville women’s sports rivalry MVP: Gabi Albiero, swimming. In the win over UK, the U of L star swept the 100 (51.25) and 200 (1:54.95) butterfly events and swam on the Cardinals’ winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
▪ Kentucky rivalry coach of the year: Mark Stoops, football. For the 2023 battle for the Governor’s Cup, Louisville was 10-1 and ranked No. 9 in the country. Kentucky was 6-5 and coming off a brutal loss to an eminently mediocre South Carolina team.
Yet with U of L backers expecting to bask in a rivalry reversal in Jeff Brohm’s debut season as Cardinals coach, Stoops instead extended his hold (see below) over the Cards by directing a 38-31 come-from-behind UK win.
▪ Louisville rivalry coach of the year: John Michael Hayden, men’s soccer. The 4-2 win by Hayden’s Cardinals snapped a three-game Kentucky winning streak in the head-to-head series.
Tracking the trends in men’s sports
▪ Baseball: Louisville has won 13 of the past 17 meetings.
▪ Basketball: Kentucky has won 13 of 16.
▪ Football: UK has won five straight and six of seven.
▪ Soccer: In the most competitively balanced series in the UK-U of L rivalry, Kentucky is 6-5-1 in the last 11 meetings.
▪ Swimming: Louisville has won 15 of the past 16 meets.
▪ Tennis: Kentucky has won 30 in a row against Louisville.
Tracking the trends in women’s sports
▪ Basketball: Louisville has beaten Kentucky seven games in a row.
▪ Soccer: U of L has won the past two meetings with UK, although the teams have now inexplicably gone five years without playing.
▪ Softball: Kentucky has won 11 of the past 13.
▪ Swimming: In spite of this school year’s loss, UK has won five of the past seven head-to-head meets with U of L.
▪ Volleyball: Louisville has won three straight over Kentucky after UK had previously run off a seven-match win streak.
The rivalry’s big question
When Kentucky and Louisville face off in men’s basketball in 2024-25, both UK’s Mark Pope and U of L’s Pat Kelsey will be making their coaching debuts in the Wildcats-Cardinals grudge-fest.
For both Kentucky and Louisville fans, the question that looms over Cats-Cards moving forward is clear:
With Calipari having exited stage left for Arkansas, can the Wildcats maintain anything close to a similar level of men’s basketball domination over the Cardinals in the coming new era of the rivalry?
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