Look, I am an Indiana University fan. Any arrogance that we had should have been tempered after the Kelvin Sampson era and the first three years of the Tom Crean era. IU fans were used to winning, competing and getting to the NCAA tournament. Post Sampson, it just didn't happen, in fact, it was real bad. Unfortunately, the humility gained from those three or four years was lost at the end of the season in 2012 and has carried over into 2013. I think most IU fans aren't like the ones online who spew hatred to anything that isn't IU and, really, towards IU when they don't win, but they do exist.
The University of Louisville got some humility during the end of the Denny Crum era and the beginning of the Rick Pitino tenure. To be honest, as an IU fan, I believe U of L fans are still relatively humble. You get one or two people who seem to think they are on the team when it is successful, but every fan base has those. I really believe that U of L fans have kept their humility, but I am not a UK fan so my perspective is probably a little skewed.
It's time for the University of Kentucky fans to face a little humility. The arrogance and cockiness of UK fans is widely known and understood even by many UK fans. Why are they this way? I don't know, maybe it is because they have an overall winning record against most programs, maybe it is because they have 8 national championships, they have more wins than any other program in the history of the NCAA and seem to get top recruiting classes each year to the Lexington campus. It would make even the most humble of fans a little, um...confident.
But this year, some of the chickens have come home to roost. Coach John Calipari and his recruting of "one and done" players finally didn't pay off. After having an incredible run his first few years, it culminated last season with a national championship. However, Coach Calipari hasn't endeared himself to too many rival fans (that's not his job) and many of the UK faithful have bought into his confidence.
The "Kentucky Effect", "non-traditional program" and other quotes have rubbed many people wrong, including fans that really don't care one way or the other. What it does is it creates an atmosphere among the fan base of "bigger than the game" and people who cannot wait for them to fail. So this season it has been hard for the average UK fan, and not so much on those waiting for failure. Their earned trip to the N.I.T. was embarrassing to many UK fans and brought pure bliss to non UK fans and then with their loss in the first round to Robert Morris, well, unfortunately, many are euphoric over it.
But here's the difference, UK has a monster recruiting class coming in next season and are already being picked to start the season ranked in the Top 5....so much for learning realistic expectations; for freshmen. Who knows? Maybe they do get #9 next season, but I can bet that the seeds will be sown for more discord when they fail again, but all fan bases do that and have to eat crow from time to time.
