Kentucky—Cornell: Not Your Stereotypical Matchup

Far too many are using up their allotment of stereotypes to tell you why they prefer Cornell over Kentucky.

The media has already billed 12th seeded Cornell versus No. One seed Kentucky as the brainiacs versus the Bluegrass Bullies.

The future CEOs of Fortune 500 companies against future NBA pros.

Games like this are what make sports great.

Contrasting styles make for good fights, good music and good basketball games. 

Kentucky has the more physically gifted athletes on its roster with John Wall, Eric Bledsoe and DeMarcus Cousins who all seem ticketed to the NBA.

While, Cornell has maybe one or two players who might get a second glance from a professional basketball scout, making them the underdog.  

And for these reasons, millions of people are pulling for the small school to complete the big upset.

However, there is more to the story.

The media has gone out of its way to disperse loaded phrases and words to describe the basketball and academic acumen of the favorites in this battle.

Tune into any sports talk radio station, pull up a sports website, or log onto a dreaded message board and you will hear or see the following:
 
“Their players understand the game involves a lot more than the slam dunk and the out-of-control drive.”

“They run plays and practice -- gasp! -- fundamentals.”

Kentucky recruits superstars. Cornell does, too -- academic superstars.

"Kentucky has up to four freshmen who may go pro as soon as their season is over -- and some of them might have kissed off classes a long time ago, because second-semester grades don't impact in-season eligibility."

"Cornell has eight seniors with big-boy majors."

Wow! Tell us how you really feel about Kentucky and their five black starting players against the mostly white team from the small East Coast town.

Some members of the media are telling us, that just because Cornell passes four times before jacking a three, and none of their players can jump out of the gym, means they play a better and smarter brand of ball than Kentucky.

That somehow they are superior to the Wildcats because they are less athletic and have to use their brains to succeed on the floor.

Oh, that’s right, all those BCS schools with the one—and—done African—Americans from the hood can’t possibly know the concept of team basketball because they rely so much on their natural athleticism to get by.

If I’m not mistaken, Kentucky finished the regular season ranked No. Two in the country with a sterling 32-two record.

Cornell, the Ivy League champs, were not ranked heading into the tournament. 

If that is not a reflection of teamwork, I don’t know what is.

The stressing of the word fundamentals also bothers me.

It reeks of displeasure. It is the same sense I get when observers use that word to compare the college game to the pro game. 

It is almost like those who place importance on the word, really want to say freakishly athletic black basketball players, are a bad thing.

I understand that early entry draftees have hurt the college game, and taken the “innocence” away.

I know there is a segment of the population that is not keen to the idea that mostly young black men are devaluing the college experience by jumping to the NBA only after two semesters in school, while the less talented white kids have to stay three or four years to impress NBA GMs.

I know we all want the great prep players to stay four years like yesteryear so that the NCAA Tournament can be what it once was when we believed the student—athletes cared about the name on the front of the jersey instead of the back.

Nonetheless, stray away from the stereotypes here.

Cornell is a solid basketball team. Lets not use them to romanticize an era when we thought basketball, "used to be played the right way because they're barren of first-round draft picks and blue-chip recruits."

Don't typecast Kentucky because the squad features McDonald's All-Americans and pros who all probably cheated on their college entrance exams.

Let the game be the game. That is all that should matter.