The fans in Rupp Arena did their part last night

There is plenty to complain about right now as a Kentucky Basketball fan. The team that had 10 extra preseason practices and four bonus exhibition games, somehow, needs more time to figure things out more than halfway through the regular season schedule. The team with the returning National Player of the Year, a projected first-round draft pick, the SEC’s assist leader, the Missouri Valley’s second-leading scorer, a career 47-percent three-point shooter, a McDonald’s All-American forward, and several pieces from last year’s team, somehow, is likely to miss the NCAA Tournament after a No. 4 ranking nationally in the preseason poll.

Last night, that team suffered Kentucky’s worst home loss (OK, maybe second worst home loss) in John Calipari’s coaching career in Lexington. Kentucky was a 20-point home favorite in the game. South Carolina was ranked 263rd in the NET at tipoff. Today there’s a new worst team in the SEC.

So, yeah, plenty to complain about in yet another year of disappointment for the former Gold Standard of College Basketball™. You can choose your own adventure when you finger-point or place blame for the problems, but leave the fans in Rupp Arena out of it because last night, Big Blue Nation did all it could to energize the players in front of them.

Was it a sold-out crowd in Rupp for Kentucky-South Carolina? No, of course not. Unfortunately, those events are very few and far between these days. The new normal, they say. Hell, four American dollars got you in the door last night for an SEC game. Crazy, right? FOUR DOLLARS TO ATTEND A HOME UK BASKETBALL GAME!

Early on, the upper level was pretty thin, especially in the end zones where entire rows of bleachers were completely empty. But by halftime, those sections saw a slow wave of late arrivers and the emptiness was masked with scattered pockets of fans. Still not a great turnout by UK’s standards, but not too bad given the current state of the program.

Here’s a look at the scene midway through the second half:

Officially, Kentucky announced attendance at a very generous 19,393. I don’t think it was close to that number, but the fans who were there (however many it really was) were very supportive of the Cats during a miserable night to be a Cats fan.

So don’t let Jeff Goodman and “someone at the Kentucky game right now” tell you otherwise.

From someone at the Kentucky game right now:

"Apathetic crowd … unlike anything I've seen here since Billy Clyde Gillespie."

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) January 11, 2023

I too was a “someone at the Kentucky game” and I’ve been to nearly every home game since Calipari’s first team in 2009-10. It was far from an apathetic crowd and it wasn’t “unlike anything since Billy Clyde Gillispie.” Maybe that person meant the basketball was unlike anything since Billy G?

Because the crowd, from my vantage point, tried to drag the team to the finish line in the second half when fans had every excuse to check out or go on home. “Go-Big-Blue” chants rang out through the building when Kentucky cut into South Carolina’s lead in the second half and got within a possession late in the game. They booed bad officiating–and the occasional South Carolina scoring run, too.

After the game, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris even said, “The crowd got into it. I couldn’t call plays anymore. It was deafening.”

So please, when you pick apart that embarrassing Tuesday night in Rupp Area, don’t blame the fans who made the trip downtown to buy the ice cream and support the team, three days removed from a 26-point loss at Alabama. There were some boo birds, the infamous Texas sign, and it got quiet in stretches (which is pretty typical of any home Kentucky game) but the crowd that was there gave its best to bring Kentucky back and the opposing team’s coach said it nearly cost the Gamecocks the game in the end.

Go Big Blue.

Anyone going to Tennessee with me?