Another college athletic powerhouse was taken down several notches Wednesday night when Kentucky lost coach Billy Gillespie’s second game with the Wildcats 84-68 against Gardner-Webb’s Runnin’ Bulldogs – and on his birthday, no less. “This is our Michigan-Appalachian State,” Marc Rabb, Gardner-Webb’s sports information director, told ESPN after the game. A little more than two months ago, Appalachian State’s football team shocked the world with a victory over Michigan at the Big House. The upset of then-No. 5 Michigan by the two-time defending I-AA champions was the first time a I-AA team had ever beaten a I-A team, and the shocker quickly gained backing as the biggest upset in college football history. Two months later into what can only be described as a wacky college football season littered with highly-ranked teams dropping like flies, the basketball season tipped off with an upset of equal proportions. Kentucky is the winningest program in college basketball history. While Gardner-Webb may be a Divison-I team, it has not been for long. Gardner-Webb, a junior college until 1969, joined D-I basketball in 2000. And how does Gardner-Webb’s recent hoops success stack up to Appalachian State’s two consecutive I-AA championships? It doesn’t. The Running Bulldogs went 9-21 a year ago and were predicted by both the media and coaches to finish No. 8 in the Atlantic Sun Conference this season. While it took a game-ending field goal block for the Mountaineers to preserve a two-point victory, the Bulldogs led start-to-finish en route to their 16-point win. The Bulldogs outshot the Wildcats by nearly 20 percent from the field because of better ball movement implied by having twice as many assists. Gardner-Webb also shot 15 percent better from three-point range and out-rebounded the Wildcats in a game that had to make Gillespie wonder what he had gotten himself into. Kentucky allowed 22 points from guard Grayson Flittner after Alabama A&M held him to 7. The Big Blue miscue was just the largest of multiple early season eye-openers. Two other powerhouses dropped exhibition games to heavily undermanned opponents. Grand Valley State beat Michigan State on Saturday, and Division II’s Findlay knocked off Ohio State on Tuesday. Morgan State also gave Connecticut a scare in their regular season opener. With the madness starting well before March, there is no reason to believe the college basketball season won’t be as eventful as the football season has been so far. And under these circumstances, the door opens to LSU potentially outplaying predictions placing them near the cellar of the Southeastern Conference this season – especially if teams like Kentucky continue to drop supposedly easy games. Given the unpredictability of college sports so far this season, maybe the Tigers could manage their way back to the Final Four with their new perimeter-oriented style. “You can’t just show up on the court and think you’re going to beat somebody because you wear a certain jersey,” Gillespie told ESPN. But hopefully a few other teams do. It makes things extremely interesting – ask football fans.
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