To steal a line from Les Miles, “Wow. What a game.”
LSU came within a Keith Hornsby trey from winning against the undisputed best team in college basketball — even if it was a terrible play call and design.
Don’t get me started with the “Johnny Jones blew it” nonsense. His team was completely outmatched. Kentucky coach John Calipari was throwing around future NBA big men like ragdolls.
You probably remember when Kentucky freshman forward Karl-Anthony Towns hung on the rim and picked up a technical foul. After the technical, Coach Cal turned around and immediately told sophomore center Dakari Johnson to get in the game.
When Towns got to the bench, Cal animatedly screamed at his freshmen. From my completely unprofessional lip-reading skills, I saw Cal say, “I hope we lose.”
Think about that. The coach of the No. 1-ranked and last undefeated team in the country said, “I hope we lose.” To Kentucky and Coach Cal, this was a learning experience. Every game is.
Cal doesn’t care if his Wildcats win or lose pre-tournament. He wants them to play like the best team in the country every time they step on the court. Kentucky’s program is one of the best, historically and today. A loss for Kentucky yesterday would’ve meant nothing but a blemish on a probable national title.
Show me one LSU fan last night who was thinking, “I hope we lose.” You can’t. The Tigers and their fans wanted this game. The team needed the game to bolster its résumé. Fans needed it to give them a reason to hope, to believe and to get them back into the program.
But why not believe and hope in this program?
Take off your purple and gold glasses, and tell me you thought LSU would win that game.
The only way you could’ve thought LSU would win was if you believed the atmosphere would rattle the young Wildcats and force them to make mistakes. But Kentucky didn’t make many errors other than Towns’ technical foul.
LSU was in the game because those players played their asses off. They gave everything they had to get the win and they were right there. Kentucky was just better.

I heard leaving the PMAC that LSU blew it in the last minute, that it was their game to lose and, worst of all, that fans “can go back to not caring about basketball.”
How do you stop caring about basketball after a game like that?
You can’t possibly tell me being one of the 13,111 people in attendance wasn’t fun. I was there, and it was a blast.
I’ve knocked on the kids in the first row of the student section for being lame and making it completely uncool to be down there, but it was fun. They weren’t any funnier than normal, but everyone else around me was so into the game that it made the student section an exciting place to be.
So don’t give up on this program. They’ve got seven regular season games left, probably the Southeastern Conference Tournament and then maybe the NCAA Tournament. There’s a lot of basketball left and if they’re going to reach the Big Dance, they need your susupport.
Don’t quit now because next season they’ll be able to compete with the big boys and topple the top teams. For the rest of this season, keep the PMAC a fun place to watch a game, make it a tough place to play and be proud of what the Tigers have done.
LSU basketball could be here to stay. It’s up to you.
Brian Pellerin is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Kenner, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @Pellerin_TDR.