even the win over duke sparks a lot of resentment - on two fronts.
its so brutal, having duke win titles twice in the last 5 years when kentucky was the team to beat - double blow - kentucky loses, then duke wins. the first year both really came at the same time, the field left was such crap, i figured for sure duke would win, without kentucky to play in the next game. that was really a discipline problem, they played to their opponent all year, but in big games, looked utterly unbeatable. it was more likely kentucky would lose to cornell (god that was painful, even in person) or WV than duke, the way those guys were.
last year's team was great and worked hard, and we lost a starter who was an energy guy who probably would have bailed us out against wisconsin. but i thought wisconsin at least had a good shot at duke, that was a pretty fair match. so those blows came in sequence, not together. that uk duke game would have been closer than in 2010, IMO. would have loved to see it.
second front... the last two duke-kentucky NCAA games were both incredible, the stuff of legends. so its two seasons now out of 5, 1 game away from a follow up, one literally for a championship and the other figuratively... it sucks as a fan of the game, to not get to watch those games, which could be as great as the previous ones (this time a bit in reverse, UK was the underdog in the two that happened). but definitely worse as a fan of kentucky.
tuesday was nice but doesn't even come close to making up for all that!