This pic above was taken from our seats at Auburn, and that's not zoomed in. Needless to say they were great seats. UK improved to 18-0, and I had a great experience at the game. We had student tickets, and its a first come, first serve seating. Unlike at UK, they have pretty much the best seats in the house, on the opposite side of the players. They have behind one of the baskets, as well. We arrived to the game around 12 or so, and the doors didn't open till 1:30, but we wanted to be close to the front of the line, so we could get good seats.
We went to the side where students get in, and we saw this big crowd waiting on the first level. We assume this is where we are supposed to be and we ask some of the other fans there and they believe it is the correct place as well. My sister gets informed from a friend who goes to Auburn that the first floor is for the Auburn crazy ticket holders only. These fans go to pretty much all of the home games, and they get in 15 minutes early. We did not have these tickets, which meant we were not in the right place after all.
My sister goes and asks an employee where we are suppose to go, and we are told that we have to go up to the third floor. We met some other UK fans on the first floor, and they followed us up because they, like us, only had regular student tickets. You may have seen our new found UK fan friend. She brought a sign that said, “If you can read this the Auburn fans have not killed me.” Because like us she was going to sit amongst the Auburn fans. She sat behind the basket to make sure she could get on television. When we got up to the third floor, we ended up being in the front at the best door to go to the best seats. The only people who would get in before us would be the crazies.
Anyway, we stood outside for awhile, met some UK fans, and some who knew about Cal’s Cats. Then we were let in and ran down and found what ended up being some really great seats. We were sitting three rows from the floor, about at the free throw line, on the left hand side.
As we were coming into the student section we got booed pretty bad by the Auburn fans and I heard people yelling “are you kidding me!” I just put my arms in the air and pumped them up and down, pretty much asking for more.
They seemed very surprised to see UK fans in their student section, most games their arenas are half full but this one was sold out because of a mixture of the UK fan base there and Auburn fans wanting to come see the number 2 team in the country. So I didn’t mind the boos, because I couldn’t imagine Auburn fans in the Eruption zone.
As we were sitting there security guards came over and said, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the lower section is for those in orange only and Kentucky fans will have to go up. We all yelled back, "no way are we going anywhere... we paid for these tickets, we got here first, their ours!"
The thing was most of the UK fans around us were actually students at Auburn who are UK fans…so it would have been hard to kick people out of a seat for a ticket they properly obtained just because they didn’t like the color of their shirt. We wouldn’t budge and then he came back and said good news you don’t have to move. We responded that’s good because we weren’t moving anyways.
The UK players came out from the tunnel to the left of us, so we were able to cheer loud for them as they came out. They before the game practiced right in front of us. Cousins came out first working on his post shot. There were UK fans behind us and in front of us including a person in a fuzzy green costume with UK gear over it and her friend had a chicken costume on with UK gear over it. The first row though was Auburn fans and they were heckling Cousins.
I assumed Cousins would just ignore it but when the ball bounced close by and they were dogging him, he looked at them and said “what’s that?” That seemed to surprise them that this big massive guy was standing right in front of them. They didn’t quit but their level of confidence sure went down.
Then as he went to the locker room they all were making this elbow motion referencing the supposed elbow in the Louisville game. Cousins took it in stride and put up his fist like he was going to fight but in a joking manner. Funny stuff.
When many of the players came back, I yelled out to them and they looked up and smiled and a few waved.
Ashley Judd was in the building. She was sitting on the opposite side and opposite corner of me. We were on the left from the camera angle on the opposite side of the Auburn bench. She was sitting behind the UK bench.
When I saw her I was trying to point her out to my dad who was sitting next to me. At the time UK had just scored and she clapped and then she raised both fist in the air in excitement.
So I trying to point her out copied what she did and clapped and raised my fist like she did and then pointed at her. She looked in my direction and pointed at me and laughed. I would assume she saw me copying her.
I was also later on the big screens for a split second so that is always entertaining.
After the game, we were cheering for them as they went back in the tunnel. Cousins stopped in front of what somehow turned into the UK corner and smiled and held out his jersey showing Kentucky.
Then we went over to the center court area to wait on the post game show. The whole area was being filled up with UK fans and by this time most Auburn fans were gone and those who were still wondering around kept looking at us UK fans wondering what in the world we were still doing there.
Cousins came out for this and sat down and did the interview and turned around and smiled as many UK fans took pictures.
Then we left the arena and outside on the first floor a line formed waiting for the UK players to come out to the bus. They came out individually and many of them signed autographs. I got seven autographs: Padgett, Harrelson, Stevenson, Harris, Liggins, Hood, and Orton.
This was a great experience. I asked Harrelson how it felt to be 18-0 and he said it felt great. I mentioned to Padgett how I love having him on staff this year.
He asked me if I would have felt the same way if we would have lost and I said of course and I mentioned how I will never forget his shot against Duke in the 98 elite eight and he just laughed.
Stevenson and Hood I just said nice game tonight and he said thank you, I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say on the spot for him. Harris I pretty much said the same thing, I believe I mentioned his defense.
Liggins came out with an ipod in his ears and I asked him what was on the ipod tonight and he said pretty much everything. I knew I would get more interaction from them with interesting questions instead of just saying good game.
Orton I mentioned his crazy blocks. I asked him if those were Oklahoma style, where he is from and he just laughed and said I guess.
The rest of the guys came through quickly. They was a gray haired women pushing them to get to the bus quickly. I got to slap hands with all of them but they didn’t stop and sign many autographs and talk with you.
Cal came out last and he went around the crowd to the side and had security, I ran to where I knew he would have to go next to the bus and was close to him but security preventing anyone from slapping hands with him.
We decided to go in front of the bus on the side walk and Cal was sitting in the front of the bus. The whole team was eating Chik-Fil-A and there was no one except for my family standing in front of the bus, so we were the only view. Mom walked right up to the bus and took a picture and then was quickly pushed to the sidewalk by a security officer. I waved at Cal and he smiled and waved back and then we left.
Overall a great time. I’m sure I’m leaving out interesting events from the night because it was filled with so many…
As for the game I will be short on that since I spent quite a bit on my experience. Bottom line Wall and Patterson didn’t play great; free throw shooting was bad, we were much more talented and despite our woes were able to pull out the win. Auburn shot some nice threes at the end but it wasn’t enough. We still cannot blow out anyone but either way we still find ourselves undefeated.
There were some concerns at times that a loss would take this great experience and put quite a damper on it and Auburn fans were talking about storming the court.
UK has a week off before we play Arkansas. Texas plays #12 Kansas St., if Texas can go down and we can beat Arkansas then we will be #1. Arkansas may be tougher than their record shows. Most of that record was without their best player Fortson and he is back and they just took it to Alabama. ..not to mention that we could barely beat Auburn who is one of the worst teams in the sec.
Back to Kentucky tomorrow…great time, Go Cats!
We went to the side where students get in, and we saw this big crowd waiting on the first level. We assume this is where we are supposed to be and we ask some of the other fans there and they believe it is the correct place as well. My sister gets informed from a friend who goes to Auburn that the first floor is for the Auburn crazy ticket holders only. These fans go to pretty much all of the home games, and they get in 15 minutes early. We did not have these tickets, which meant we were not in the right place after all.
My sister goes and asks an employee where we are suppose to go, and we are told that we have to go up to the third floor. We met some other UK fans on the first floor, and they followed us up because they, like us, only had regular student tickets. You may have seen our new found UK fan friend. She brought a sign that said, “If you can read this the Auburn fans have not killed me.” Because like us she was going to sit amongst the Auburn fans. She sat behind the basket to make sure she could get on television. When we got up to the third floor, we ended up being in the front at the best door to go to the best seats. The only people who would get in before us would be the crazies.
Anyway, we stood outside for awhile, met some UK fans, and some who knew about Cal’s Cats. Then we were let in and ran down and found what ended up being some really great seats. We were sitting three rows from the floor, about at the free throw line, on the left hand side.
As we were coming into the student section we got booed pretty bad by the Auburn fans and I heard people yelling “are you kidding me!” I just put my arms in the air and pumped them up and down, pretty much asking for more.
They seemed very surprised to see UK fans in their student section, most games their arenas are half full but this one was sold out because of a mixture of the UK fan base there and Auburn fans wanting to come see the number 2 team in the country. So I didn’t mind the boos, because I couldn’t imagine Auburn fans in the Eruption zone.
As we were sitting there security guards came over and said, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the lower section is for those in orange only and Kentucky fans will have to go up. We all yelled back, "no way are we going anywhere... we paid for these tickets, we got here first, their ours!"
The thing was most of the UK fans around us were actually students at Auburn who are UK fans…so it would have been hard to kick people out of a seat for a ticket they properly obtained just because they didn’t like the color of their shirt. We wouldn’t budge and then he came back and said good news you don’t have to move. We responded that’s good because we weren’t moving anyways.
The UK players came out from the tunnel to the left of us, so we were able to cheer loud for them as they came out. They before the game practiced right in front of us. Cousins came out first working on his post shot. There were UK fans behind us and in front of us including a person in a fuzzy green costume with UK gear over it and her friend had a chicken costume on with UK gear over it. The first row though was Auburn fans and they were heckling Cousins.
I assumed Cousins would just ignore it but when the ball bounced close by and they were dogging him, he looked at them and said “what’s that?” That seemed to surprise them that this big massive guy was standing right in front of them. They didn’t quit but their level of confidence sure went down.
Then as he went to the locker room they all were making this elbow motion referencing the supposed elbow in the Louisville game. Cousins took it in stride and put up his fist like he was going to fight but in a joking manner. Funny stuff.
When many of the players came back, I yelled out to them and they looked up and smiled and a few waved.
Ashley Judd was in the building. She was sitting on the opposite side and opposite corner of me. We were on the left from the camera angle on the opposite side of the Auburn bench. She was sitting behind the UK bench.
When I saw her I was trying to point her out to my dad who was sitting next to me. At the time UK had just scored and she clapped and then she raised both fist in the air in excitement.
So I trying to point her out copied what she did and clapped and raised my fist like she did and then pointed at her. She looked in my direction and pointed at me and laughed. I would assume she saw me copying her.
I was also later on the big screens for a split second so that is always entertaining.
After the game, we were cheering for them as they went back in the tunnel. Cousins stopped in front of what somehow turned into the UK corner and smiled and held out his jersey showing Kentucky.
Then we went over to the center court area to wait on the post game show. The whole area was being filled up with UK fans and by this time most Auburn fans were gone and those who were still wondering around kept looking at us UK fans wondering what in the world we were still doing there.
Cousins came out for this and sat down and did the interview and turned around and smiled as many UK fans took pictures.
Then we left the arena and outside on the first floor a line formed waiting for the UK players to come out to the bus. They came out individually and many of them signed autographs. I got seven autographs: Padgett, Harrelson, Stevenson, Harris, Liggins, Hood, and Orton.
This was a great experience. I asked Harrelson how it felt to be 18-0 and he said it felt great. I mentioned to Padgett how I love having him on staff this year.
He asked me if I would have felt the same way if we would have lost and I said of course and I mentioned how I will never forget his shot against Duke in the 98 elite eight and he just laughed.
Stevenson and Hood I just said nice game tonight and he said thank you, I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say on the spot for him. Harris I pretty much said the same thing, I believe I mentioned his defense.
Liggins came out with an ipod in his ears and I asked him what was on the ipod tonight and he said pretty much everything. I knew I would get more interaction from them with interesting questions instead of just saying good game.
Orton I mentioned his crazy blocks. I asked him if those were Oklahoma style, where he is from and he just laughed and said I guess.
The rest of the guys came through quickly. They was a gray haired women pushing them to get to the bus quickly. I got to slap hands with all of them but they didn’t stop and sign many autographs and talk with you.
Cal came out last and he went around the crowd to the side and had security, I ran to where I knew he would have to go next to the bus and was close to him but security preventing anyone from slapping hands with him.
We decided to go in front of the bus on the side walk and Cal was sitting in the front of the bus. The whole team was eating Chik-Fil-A and there was no one except for my family standing in front of the bus, so we were the only view. Mom walked right up to the bus and took a picture and then was quickly pushed to the sidewalk by a security officer. I waved at Cal and he smiled and waved back and then we left.
Overall a great time. I’m sure I’m leaving out interesting events from the night because it was filled with so many…
As for the game I will be short on that since I spent quite a bit on my experience. Bottom line Wall and Patterson didn’t play great; free throw shooting was bad, we were much more talented and despite our woes were able to pull out the win. Auburn shot some nice threes at the end but it wasn’t enough. We still cannot blow out anyone but either way we still find ourselves undefeated.
There were some concerns at times that a loss would take this great experience and put quite a damper on it and Auburn fans were talking about storming the court.
UK has a week off before we play Arkansas. Texas plays #12 Kansas St., if Texas can go down and we can beat Arkansas then we will be #1. Arkansas may be tougher than their record shows. Most of that record was without their best player Fortson and he is back and they just took it to Alabama. ..not to mention that we could barely beat Auburn who is one of the worst teams in the sec.
Back to Kentucky tomorrow…great time, Go Cats!
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