In a seemingly annual battle, the two most storied teams in college basketball meet again in an early season match-up.  Kentucky leads North Carolina by 3 wins coming into today’s game.  Kentucky has been on a downward swing with the departure of coach Rick Pitino for the NBA in 1997.  UNC on the other hand has been one of the best teams in the NCAA since the arrival in 2003.

Along with the top recruiting class in the country and sporting a new, high profile coach, John Calipari, Kentucky (7-0) comes into today’s match-up as the 5th ranked team while UNC (7-1) is ranked 10th.  Statistically the teams are very evenly matched and given Kentucky’s youth and inexperience the game would seem to be an unpredictable but exciting game.

Kentucky has jumped out to a large half-time lead of 43-25.  But this isn’t so much about the game as it is about Mr. OmniSports and Mrs. OmniSports.

Mr. OmniSports (thats your author) was born and raised 50 miles south of Lexington, Kentucky and even attended UK for two years before heading 20 miles down the road to Eastern Ky. University where he met fellow Kentucky Blue Blood Mrs. OmniSports who was from the Louisville metro area; her family huge Kentucky fans.

We moved away from the BLUEgrass state for a short stint in Florida and ended up in North Carolina, a mere 20 minutes away from Chapel Hill.  Disconnected from UK and the Wildcat’s press coverage, we have been inundated with Tar-Heel coverage for the past 10 years.  Its been hard to remain a Kentucky fan here in the heart of the ACC were everything is about UNC and Duke.  It also didn’t help that Kentucky was going through a rough period of its history.

Enter Roy Williams

Even as a Big Blue fan, you have to respect Roy Williams. He is a class act. He is a great coach. He’s someone who you can’t help but like. I have even voluntarily attended a UNC game (okay the tickets were free!). Still at the end of the day they are in my mind the enemy, the biggest threat to the Cat’s historic superiority.

I’ve fought through the brainwashing, but sadly Mrs. OmniSports has succumb to the pressure and has become a UNC fan. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t like Calipari or the type of players he surrounds himself with either. I had hope that there was some UK blue still there, but today before the game, she came out and waved a UNC Plastic cup in my face. During the first half when Kentucky ran out to their large lead she exclaimed “They are kicking our butts”. No, “we are kicking their butts”.

I don’t know how I can save her. How can I bring her back into the Big Blue fold and out of the powder-puff blue side of the fence.