Kentucky (and KSR)'s history in Catlanta in the Calipari Era

On Saturday, your No. 14 University of Kentucky Wildcats face the No. 9 North Carolina Tar Heels in the CBS Sports Classic at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. It’s the 43rd meeting between the two programs, with North Carolina holding a 25-17 edge. Drew Franklin delved into the history of the series earlier this week; today, I want to focus on the setting of the game: Atlanta, Georgia, or “Catlanta” as it is known to the Big Blue Nation.

Kentucky has played 103 basketball games in Atlanta, dating back to the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) Tournament in 1921. Since then, the Cats’ trips to ATL have mostly been for the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, although there was a 25-year stretch from the 1940s to 1970s where they played Georgia Tech almost every season.

Kentucky is 70-33 all-time in Atlanta, 7-4 since John Calipari became coach. For the sake of this post, we’ll focus on that latter figure. While the Cats are on a three-game losing streak in Atlanta, the city has also been home to some awesome Calipari Era moments. As we count down to Saturday, let’s relive some Catlanta highs and lows, with some KSR stories thrown in. There have been plenty of those there, too.

March 11-13, 2011: SEC Tournament

• Quarterfinals: 75-66 W vs. Ole Miss
• Semifinals: 72-58 W vs. Alabama
• Finals: 70-54 W vs. Florida

Kentucky took home a trophy from its first trip to Atlanta in the Calipari Era. The 2010-11 team won the program’s 27th SEC Tournament title with wins over Ole Miss, Alabama, and Florida. The quarterfinal game vs. Ole Miss ended up being the toughest, as the Rebels narrowed a double-digit Kentucky lead to one possession several times late in the second half. Brandon Knight hit five free throws in the final minute to help the Cats avoid an early exit.

From there, the Cats cruised, despite Doron Lamb spraining his ankle late in the semifinals vs. Alabama. Knight led Kentucky in scoring vs. Florida in the finals but Darius Miller was the star, hitting two big threes to extend Kentucky’s lead to 14 with nine minutes left. Miller took home SEC Tournament MVP honors.

“The way my team is playing right now, let’s have it! Come on! Bring it!” John Calipari said of his mood following the wins in Atlanta. “This is a very smart team. The basketball sense of this team, the savvy.”

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March 23-25, 2012: NCAA Tournament Regional

• Sweet 16: 102-90 W vs. Indiana
• Elite 8: 82-70 W vs. Baylor

One year later, Catlanta was the site of some very sweet revenge. Indiana handed the 2011-12 Kentucky team its only regular-season loss in Bloomington on Dec. 10, a moment the Hoosiers still celebrate to this day. What Indiana fans still fail to recognize is that Kentucky’s win in the NCAA Tournament is the only one that matters.

On March 23, the No. 1 seed Cats ended the Hoosiers’ season 102-90 to advance to the Elite Eight. They did it despite Anthony Davis being in foul trouble and “only” finishing with nine points and 12 rebounds. With Davis on the bench most of the first half, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist stepped up, finishing with 24 points and 10 rebounds.

Two days later, the Cats punched their ticket to the Final Four with an 82-70 win over No. 3 seed Baylor, a score that doesn’t do their performance justice. Baylor took an early lead, but the Cats responded with a 16-0 run and led by 20 at halftime. At one point in the first half, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist had as many points (17) as Baylor’s entire team. It was a feel-good romp from start to finish, setting the stage for what was to come.

KSR Memories: This was my first trip to Atlanta to see the Cats play in the Calipari era. At the time, I was working part-time for KSR so I was able to attend games as a fan and also hang out with the crew at STATS, the bar around the corner from the Georgia Dome that was home to pregame shows, postgame shows, and just about every other non-basketball moment, it seemed.

The STATS rooftop was the place to be that weekend, and KSR’s shows were broadcast on TVs throughout the bar. This was the height of the three-goggles phenomenon, so almost every picture I have from that trip includes them. This was where I also got to see my husband, who married into BBN, encounter Indiana fans for the first time. He couldn’t refrain from a little back-and-forth with some candy-striped-clad Hoosiers on the walk to the Georgia Dome.

The following weekend will be the biggest to remember for the 2012 team, but that trip to Atlanta was pretty sweet.

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Nov. 13, 2012: 75-68 L to Duke (Champions Classic)

Kentucky returned to Atlanta later that year and brought home a very different result. The 2012-13 Wildcats were ranked No. 3 entering the Champions Classic game vs. No. 9 Duke, the first matchup between the two programs since 2001. Given how that season played out, it’s a little hard to believe, but the Cats hung tough, narrowing a 14-point Duke lead in the second half to three with three minutes left. Sadly, Seth Curry stepped up to clinch the game for the Blue Devils.

KSR Memories: For me, the game was not the highlight of this trip. I had just accepted a full-time position with KSR and was on my two-week notice from my old job. Even though I’d been working part-time for the website for a few years, there was something different about the meeting I had with Matt and Drew in a random conference room at the Omni Hotel before the game.

My family came with me to Atalanta to celebrate and STATS was once again home base, with Jeff Sheppard and Christian Laettner making an appearance on the pregame show. Sadly, looking through pictures, it did not appear that Reed (who would have been eight years old) was with them.

There was a ton of buzz heading into this game — defending national champion Kentucky vs. Duke for the first time in over a decade — but not even a loss to the Blue Devils could knock me off my high.

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March 14-16, 2014: SEC Tournament

• Quarterfinals: 85-67 W vs. LSU
• Semifinals: 70-58 W vs. Georgia
• Finals: 61-60 L vs. Florida

Kentucky was at a crossroads entering the 2014 SEC Tournament. The Cats had lost three of their last four games, including a 72-67 defeat at South Carolina that felt like rock bottom. Catlanta is where they turned it around.

The young Cats looked like a different team in the SEC Tournament, thanks in part to Calipari’s famous “tweak.” The top-ranked freshman class finally rounded into form, routing LSU and Georgia to secure a spot in the finals vs. Florida. Aaron Harrison broke out of a shooting slump in the semifinals vs. the Bulldogs, hitting seven of ten shots, including four threes. He wouldn’t cool off for three more weeks.

The No. 1-ranked Gators presented a much tougher challenge in the finals, but Kentucky matched them blow for blow. Willie Cauley-Stein held his own vs. Patric Young, finishing with 10 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 blocks, a relief after an entire weekend of seeing the SEC in-house videos in which Young said his off-court talent was hunting while Willie’s was art.

Any other year, losing in the SEC Tournament finals would be a disappointment, but considering where Kentucky was heading into the week, coming up just short of upsetting the No. 1 team in the country was a moral victory you could sit with. As James Young said afterward, “It showed that we could play with anybody.”

KSR Memories: It was a heck of a ride for the Kentucky fans who made the trip to Atlanta for this one. KSR was back at STATS, and after Kentucky’s wins over LSU and Georgia, more fans made the trek down I-75 to join the party. “Tweak” was the word of the weekend, with fans sporting custom shirts and making parody songs (sorry for getting this one back in your head).

The stars were out after Kentucky’s win over Georgia on Saturday. Tim Couch, Laura Bell Bundy, and even Rob Bromley were all spotted at the bars around the Georgia Dome that night. I’m not lying when I say Drew Franklin did not sleep the entire weekend.

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March 22, 2018: 61-58 L to Kansas State (Sweet 16)

Unfortunately, Kentucky’s most recent memories in Atlanta are bad ones. In the 2018 NCAA Tournament, No. 5 seed Kentucky beat No. 12 Davidson and No. 13 Buffalo to advance to the Sweet 16 in Atlanta. The bracket in the South Region had miraculously opened up, with No. 1 seed Virginia losing to UMBC in the first round and No. 2 seed Cincinnati and No. 3 seed Tennessee both losing in the second round. All that stood between Kentucky and another Final Four was No. 9 seed Kansas State and the winner of No. 11 seed Loyola-Chicago and No. 7 Nevada. BBN descended upon Catlanta — or as Quade Green called it, “Cat City” — for what was setting up to be a fun weekend.

To echo a phrase we said a lot that weekend (and again this past March), stupid Kansas State. Everything went wrong for Kentucky that day in Philips Arena. The Cats shot only 38% from the field and 25% from three and turned the ball over 15 times en route to the 61-58 loss; however, the stat that everyone will remember is PJ Washington’s 8-20 mark from the free-throw line. The blame shouldn’t all be on him, though. PJ still led Kentucky in scoring with 18 points, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went 2-10 from the floor and 11-12 from the free throw line for 15 points. Shai’s three-point attempt at the buzzer was no good, and Kentucky’s season was over.

K-STATE SURVIVES!!!

The Wildcats hold off Kentucky and move on to the #Elite8#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/UQXBB8eBVe

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 23, 2018

KSR Memories: Nothing happy about this one. I don’t think I’ll forget Bruce Weber’s voice in the postgame press conference as we wrote the post-mortem on Kentucky’s season. Not even Shannon the Dude creating a Sister Jean Twitter account that fooled everyone — including the TODAY Show — could cheer me up.

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Dec. 6, 2020: 79-62 L to Georgia Tech (Holiday Hoopsgiving)

Kentucky’s game vs. Georgia Tech in the Holiday Hoopsgiving in December 2020 was one of many lowlights from a season to forget. No fans were allowed in State Farm Arena for the game, which was a blessing because the people who watched on TV could at least turn it off. The Cats lost to Josh Pastner’s Yellow Jackets by 17 to fall to 1-3 on the season. Terrence Clarke finished with a season-high 22 points.

KSR Memories: Jack Pilgrim was one of a handful of reporters who made the trip to Atlanta for this game. Here are his memories:

There were maybe four media members there and they had boxed sandwich lunches for us four. Masks mandatory with Zoom pressers, obviously. But the arena was so big without a single fan in the stands. A few random staffers scattered throughout, but no cheering and no celebrating. Dead silence. Heard every squeak and coaching/player conversation.

I just remember thinking it was the biggest waste of time for everyone involved. Stupid event, stupid opponent, stupid location, just made no sense. And then we lost and it drove home the point just how stupid it was. Of all the crappy events/games that year, that was by far the worst.

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Dec. 16, 2023: North Carolina – ??

Every Kentucky team that has won in Atlanta in the John Calipari Era has gone on to a Final Four. This team, a throwback to Cal’s old rosters, has shown flashes of promise but is still finding its footing as it adds in seven-footers. After the jarring loss to UNC Wilmington and a ho-hum win over Penn, nothing would energize the Big Blue Nation more than a win over a top-ten North Carolina team on Saturday. Come through for us, Catlanta.