BBN Update: Trauma Not Over Yet After Duke’s Demolition Derby In Indy

Looks like it may take a bit longer for the sting from the Duke nuke game to wear off for Kentucky: the Wildcats struggled with Southern Illinois at home before pulling away quite late to win 71-59.

Even more shocking, in an arena where people fight to see Big Blue Madness, there were a couple of thousand empty seats.

Aside from the relentless beatdown Duke put on Kentucky Tuesday night, nothing about UK’s situation is more shocking than that: apathy? In the Big Blue Nation?

Astounding.

For his part, John Calipari wasn’t particularly pleased, saying “[w]e’ve got to get better with the ball. We’re going to show them tomorrow all 19 turnovers, and I’ll have one question after each one: Was that necessary? … My guess is nine of them were like, ‘Why in the world would you even attempt that?’”

And he went on to say “[w]e made strides today. Nick made strides. Immanuel made strides. P.J. (Washington) made strides. Quade (Green) made strides. … We had some guys not play well. I just said, ‘Hey man, be happy we won. And figure it out.’”

So not much happiness in Big Blueville. How bad are things? This bad: the visiting coach from SIU feels obliged to lecture Kentucky fans on expectations.

Barry Hinson: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. These guys are 18, 19, 20 years old. And you have children of your own. And you want to microwave the maturation process, and you can’t do that. It takes time. So back off and let these guys go through the maturity process and let Coach Calipari do what he does best. And by March, you’re going to have something on the floor that you’re going to be really proud of.”

Isn’t that incredible? Lecturing BBN in its own house?

Duke won a smashing victory to be sure but Kentucky may have lost more than a game. We never expected the Laettner Game to be topped but if it’s possible, Kentucky fans may hate Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett even more.