Chris Mack fired back at John Calipari on Tuesday about this year’s Kentucky-Louisville game.
Last week, Mack expressed reservations about playing Louisville’s annual rivalry game with Kentucky. He said he wasn’t sure the game would happen because he felt it would be unfair for Louisville to get a home game this year with limited or no fans, only to go to Lexington the following year with fans.
“I don’t know [if the Kentucky game will happen,” Mack said on ‘Full Court Press with Fanta and Adams’ last week. “Where is the equity of Kentucky coming here in front of no fans, and then having to go to Rupp Arena in front of 21,000 fans? We recognize that it’s the best rivalry – I know I’m biased – in all of college basketball.”
Mack said he preferred to do a neutral site game this year and then get their home game next year.
“We’re not afraid to play anybody. We’ll play the game at a neutral site. If it screws up their schedule next year, we’ll play two neutral games in a row. There are a lot of logistics that go into scheduling so I’m not trying to throw it all on UK, but we don’t want the rivalry or the game to end,” Mack said to the Louisville Courier Journal.
Earlier on Tuesday, Calipari said Kentucky had a backup plan in case Louisville pulls out of the game.
“I know there was a question on the Louisville game but we have a date and a time unless that changes, if they choose not to play and we’ll plug in another team. We already have that team set,” Calipari told reporters, via Kentucky Sports Radio.
Mack wasn’t about to be made to look like a fool and like his program was preventing the game.
Later in the day, Mack responded with a great video he posted on Twitter. He laid out the entire background to the situation.
To Cardinals’ fans everywhere…. pic.twitter.com/vBMgnduWaD
— Chris Mack (@CoachChrisMack) September 29, 2020
Mack says they had a Dec. 12 mutually-agreed upon date to play the game. He says Kentucky backed out of that date because they were returning from London a week earlier and felt the Louisville game would be too soon. Kentucky’s London trip got canceled, and the Wildcats scheduled Notre Dame for Dec. 12 instead.
Mack also says they honored Cincinnati’s request to move a rivalry game between the teams to a neutral site for this year. Then he took a sarcastic shot at Kentucky.
“I don’t want to stand in the way of college basketball’s best rivalry. Whatever is most convenient for Coach Cal, we’ll do it!” Mack said.
Neither school’s schedule for this season has been released yet.
We knew that Mack could be an intense guy at times. He just took that to a new level.
