With the basketball season over for the men’s team, and at the risk of bringing up a sensitive subject, particularly juxtaposed against the how well the team played over the last 7, 10 or even 15 or so games depending on your individual perspective, I “stumbled” upon a fact randomly, albeit when looking something else up, that the Dores have now lost 13 straight to UK. This really “hit me hard”, although many of you might say we already knew that or ask the question . . . “why are you are so impacted by this discovery”. Perhaps, the answer lies with the overlap of my years as a student at VU and the intensely competitive rivalry at that time with the Cats. I can’t stand losing to UK. Can we beat them next year? Who knows . . . as the composition of both teams are substantially still a work in progress and/or an unknown as of this moment in time.
So, because misery loves company, I decided to perform a little research. The 13 straight losses to UK was matched between 1982 and 1987 (including a 1987-88 season game played during late December of 1987). However, that’s not our longest consecutive game losing streak to the Cats; that streak was exceeded from 1940 up to the SEC tournament in 1951 . . . 19 losses in a row. And, yes, the streak was broken when we beat the Cats in the SEC tourney championship game. Of course, that time period includes the five seasons which overlapped with WWII where the composition of teams was very different than during any other period of time, other than, perhaps WWI.
The chart below presents our record versus UK (albeit during admittedly arbitrary time periods but ones that do tell a story, I believe) [NOTE: A December 1987 game is included as part of 1988 and excluded from 1987.] [NOTE: I overlapped some of the cohorts which I show at the bottom of the chart so don’t try to reconcile to “12 and 12” in the upper part of the chart.]
For the “old timers” on this Board, this might resonate pretty strongly while even for those much younger, a little historical perspective might be mildly of interest:
So, because misery loves company, I decided to perform a little research. The 13 straight losses to UK was matched between 1982 and 1987 (including a 1987-88 season game played during late December of 1987). However, that’s not our longest consecutive game losing streak to the Cats; that streak was exceeded from 1940 up to the SEC tournament in 1951 . . . 19 losses in a row. And, yes, the streak was broken when we beat the Cats in the SEC tourney championship game. Of course, that time period includes the five seasons which overlapped with WWII where the composition of teams was very different than during any other period of time, other than, perhaps WWI.
The chart below presents our record versus UK (albeit during admittedly arbitrary time periods but ones that do tell a story, I believe) [NOTE: A December 1987 game is included as part of 1988 and excluded from 1987.] [NOTE: I overlapped some of the cohorts which I show at the bottom of the chart so don’t try to reconcile to “12 and 12” in the upper part of the chart.]
For the “old timers” on this Board, this might resonate pretty strongly while even for those much younger, a little historical perspective might be mildly of interest:
| Seasons | Wins | Losses | Comments | ||
| 2017 - 2022 | 0 | 13 | Calipari; Drew/Stackhouse | ||
| 2010 – 2016 | 4 | 12 | Calipari; Stallings | ||
| 2004 – 2009 | 7 | 5 | Smith & Gillespie; Stallings | ||
| 1991 – 2003 | 3 | 25 | Smith/Pitino; Fogler/VBK/Stallings | ||
| 1988 – 1990 | 4 | 3 | Sutton, except Pitino ’90; Newton: ’88-’89; Fogler: ‘90 | ||
| 1982 - 1987 | 0 | 12 | Hall ’82-’85; Sutton ’86 & ’87; Newton | ||
| 1977 – 1981 | 2 | 9 | Hall; Dobbs: ’77-’79; Schmidt: ’80-‘81 | ||
| 1975 – 1976 | 1 | 3 | Hall; Skinner | ||
| 1963 - 1974 | 12 | 12 | Rupp except Hall ’73 & ’74; Skinner | ||
| 1961 – 1962 | 1 | 6 | Skinner | ||
| 1952 – 1960 | 2 | 12 | Polk, except Skinner 1958-59 | ||
| 1933 – 1951 | 3 | 32 | |||
| 1912 – 1932 | 8 | 12 | |||
| | ||||
Within 1963 - 1974: "Natural Groupings" | | ||||
| | ||||
| 1973 – 1976 | 5 | 3 | Fosnes/Feher/Ford | ||
| 1972 - 1974 | 4 | 2 | VBK/Compton/Ligon/Fowler | ||
| 1969 - 1971 | 2 | 4 | Weber | ||
| 1968 – 1970 | 2 | 4 | Wallace | ||
| 1967 – 1969 | 3 | 3 | Hagan | ||
| 1964 – 1966 | 3 | 3 | Lee | ||
| 1963 | 1 | 1 | Schurig/Grace/Miller | ||
| | ||||
| 14 | 62 | |||
| | ||||
| 1912 – 1962 | 14 | 62 |
