Louisville fans are getting creative in their trolling of basketball-rival Kentucky.
The No. 3 seeded Wildcats were knocked out in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on Thursday by 11th-seeded Oakland in an 80-76 upset.
While Kentucky fans mourned their chance at a ninth national championship, Cardinal fans took to the Oakland website to purchase t-shirts of their new favorite team — $8,000 worth of them! And Golden Grizzlies head coach Greg Kampe believes they might have even contributed to the school’s site crashing on Thursday night.
“Our university website crashed last night … We also sold $8,000 worth of t-shirts to Louisville,” Kampe said.
The coach, who is in his 40th season at the helm of Oakland’s men’s basketball program, looked flabbergasted speaking to the media about the purchases.
“Honest to God, you know, they buy the t-shirts and they put the credit card in … Louisville, Louisville, Louisville …. [it] wasn’t the same person,” Kampe continued.
Cardinal fans did not have much to cheer about at the start of the tournament as their squad missed out following a disastrous 8-24 campaign that led to the firing of head coach Kenny Payne.
Watching Kentucky go down in the first round likely eased some of that pain, and prompted fans to focus their energy on next season’s rivalry, which is where coach Kampe thinks the t-shirts will make an appearance.
“I don’t know next year, when Lousiville and Kentucky play … I don’t know if everybody’s going to show up in an Oakland shirt or what. I have no idea. But, it’s crazy to think about what something like this does,” Kampe said.
Louisville and Kentucky have met six times in the NCAA Tournament with the Wildcats taking all four of the six victories. The most recent tournament matchup was in the 2014 Sweet Sixteen (Kentucky 74, Louisville 69).
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